Free Blood & Tacos #1 by Johnny Shaw, Matthew Funk, Gary Phillips, Christopher Blair, Cameron Ashley Page B

be ridiculous."
    "Four minutes until Kill point."
    Kill point—the moment when the mission failed. The instant both men had been outrunning since Tiger Team Bravo had been abandoned in the Cambodian jungle to march their way out of a war that had cancelled their existence.
    Neither man frowned to think of it. They hadn't frowned since they'd been orphaned to that long march from enemy lines with Captain Teague and their other teammates left for dead behind them.
    Outrunning that moment was what they did. It was who Tiger Team Bravo was.
    Banzai kept it in the red and Professor kept the blank expression on his slate black face. He'd worn it since he smelled the pre-historic flowers and burning fuel ofVietnama decade ago.
    "Three minutes, thirty."
    Banzai had his own clock: Seven seconds before the Jeeps alongside the truck trailer would reach its rear.
    He punched nitro. The Tiger's roar sliced into a scream. Asphalt disappeared.
    Five seconds. 100 yards between the Tiger and the Cartel trailer's rear.
    Three seconds. Banzai lifted the MP-40 again. Sneered to ash the Marlboro.
    One second. Banzai jerked the wheel right.
    The Tiger's front bumper clipped the rear of the Jeep to the right just as it dropped past the trailer. Slammed the smaller vehicle into a skid. The coked-up Jeep driver panicked; the skid became a spin.
    Banzai balanced the MP-40 on his arm, sent a cloud of 9mm parabellum into the Jeep on the left. Opened the driver's skull like a can of creamed corn. Sent the gunman sprawling.
    The Tiger pulled straight. The two Jeeps joined the others twisted aside the nameless desert highway.
    "Three minutes." Professor lifted the M79 grenade launcher from the roof rack. Rolled down inch-thick bulletproof glass with his other hand.
    The target held more than 300 kilos of Colombian flake. The Cartel used it as a mobile command for its drug shipments: Always moving, shifting the routes of its drug runners to dodge State cops and Feds.
    It had taken Tiger Team Bravo three months for their source, Baretta, an ex-Army Intel joker they knew from MACV-SOG to worm his way into the Cartel enough to cough up one of the big rig's routes.
    It would be worth it.
    The brain-trust of Cartel trade in the South, the big rig held the records of all Cartel border runs.
    As Banzai brought the Tiger to within 50 yards of the 18-wheeler's rear doors, the big rig showed it held some secrets too: The doors blew wide to show a cage of steel plate sprouting a .50 heavy machinegun.
    Banzai tore the Tiger to the side as the .50 opened up, noise shaking the windshield. Slugs designed to chew up aircraft metal like rice paper chunked the road.
    Professor had no choice—he leaned out the window with the grenade launcher.
    The gold-toothed Cartel gunman tracked them with the 600-slugs a minute coming from the red hot barrel of the .50.
    Banzai nodded at the road ahead. "Looks like your calculations were a bit off this time, Professor. Tunnel's coming up in two miles."
    Professor aimed the grenade launcher. Slugs bigger than his hand sang around, creased his beret with violated air.
    "One minute to the tunnel." Banzai said.
    Professor replied with the cough of the M79.
    The grenade soared over the big rig's profile. It dipped. The shell slammed into the roof.
    Smoke billowed rot-yellow from the big rig.
    "It's all part of the plan." Professor ducked back into the Tiger. The sound of a descending plane rumbled through the window as he rolled it up.
    Banzai glanced up as he braked the Tiger. Jasper was dive-bombing the Cesna out of the invisibility of the high, powder-blue sky toward the yellow smoke trail. Vaquero already clung to the landing gear, tassels snapping from his red-and-white calfskin jacket.
    The Cesna's shriek grabbed the highway. The Cartel gunner tilted the .50 up to greet it. Tracers ribboned the air.
    Tilting and swinging like a gut-shot crow, the Cesna wove between the blazing slugs. Jasper pressed his arsenal of crooked teeth toward