Philippine Hardpunch Read Online Free PDF

Hawkins and reacted as one, falling away from each other at where they first materialized
     from the wispy mist, swinging AK-47s around even as Caine and the Texan tracked their own CAR-15s in the communists’ direction.
    In that microsecond before all hell broke loose, Richard Caine knew there was no way
this
could be dealt with quietly.
    No way could they not blow the mission sky-high if he and Hawkeye wanted to survive this confrontation.
    In that instant, before rifles from both sides opened fire, he heard and fully concurred with Hawkeye’s snarled assessment.
    “Aw, mule piss,” the Texan grunted.
    Cody and Murphy had heard shouting inside the h.q. hut as they had approached it along the walk.
    Cody expected their presence here to be discovered at any moment, or to hear something go wrong from the direction from which
     Caine and Hawkins were closing in.
    Locsin would have the occasional foot patrol checking along the inside of the wall and with night turning to almost day, the
     team was becoming easier to spot by the second.
    They gained the rear of the hut.
    The shouting from inside quieted down.
    He had peered around one side of the structure, Murphy around the other, and had seen the two NPA officers striding from this
     hut, watching them stride in the direction of the officers’ private quarters.
    As the officers drew out of earshot, Murphy had whispered to Cody, “I tag the one on the left as Locsin, Sarge. Looks like
     Lund’s intel is on the mark. That yelling we heard was in English.”
    Cody nodded, glanced at his wristwatch, then across the compound in the direction of the motor pool area beyond the mess tent.
    “Richard and Hawkeye are late.”
    “They’ll make it. What about the folks inside this hut?”
    “Locsin left an orderly behind,” Cody growled. “I’ll take him. Cover me.”
    “You got it,” Rufe grunted.
    Murphy was used to covering Cody’s ass. He had been the chopper pilot assigned to Cody’s unit in Vietnam and had pulled Cody
     and the unit out of more hot spots than any team of dog soldiers had a right to survive.
    Cody sprinted around the side of the hut and on into it, Rufe moving right behind him as far as the doorway, where he spun
     and held a position just inside out-of-sight of anyone outside, with a clear field of fire.
    An NPA guerilla sat at a shortwave radio setup, not realizing he was in trouble until Cody was on him, death came that fast.
    The young man started to rise, going into a turn, then Cody looped the garrote around the guy’s throat from behind and pulled
     the orderly back, with his knee into the small of the man’s back. He killed him like that, ruthlessly, efficiently, before
     the radio man had time to do more than reach both hands up in a grab for the strangling garrote that bit off his wind and
     killed him.
    Cody stepped back, away, turning from the dead man before the body sank to the earthen floor.
    He tracked up his CAR-15, moving quickly to peer through the inside doorway in one of the paneled partitions dividing the
     hut. He stood in that doorway, fanning the room with his weapon, then he lowered the rifle without firing.
    He saw no danger in here.
    He saw only what he and his men had come all this way to find.
    Three too-close-to-the-edge basket cases.
    Mrs. Jeffers, who stared straight ahead, not comprehending his appearance on the scene or anything else.
    Ann Jeffers lay handcuffed to one of three poles, rising from the floor, like her mother and father. She did not move, but
     her ragged breathing assured Cody he had not come too late for her.
    Cal Jeffers leaped to his feet when Cody stepped forward. Jeffers looked drained in body and spirit, but the spark of fight
     crackled in his eyes.
    “Thank God!” Jeffers rasped, his voice quavering, “Thank
God
!”
    “No time,” Cody growled. He went to Jeffers and used a pair of wire cutters from his belt to snap open Jeffers’ handcuffs.
    Jeffers burst his arms free from behind the