Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) Read Online Free

and concussion as the grenade detonated, throwing smoke, dust, and whickering shrapnel through the windows and part of the walls.  I felt something smack into my soft armor just behind my shoulder, which had been pressed up against the wall.  Those cinderblock walls weren’t the best for ballistic protection sometimes.
    Bryan was moving as soon as the detonation was over, vaulting through the window.  I followed as fast as I could, my boots hitting the floor inside as soon as he’d cleared the opening.  He went right, so I went left, getting out of the window as fast as possible.  Jim and Cyrus opted to come in through the door, which damned near hit me as Cyrus kicked it open.
    All four of us were intermittently flashing our brilliant weapon lights into the corners of the room.  There had been three men in the upper room.  Two were unmistakably dead.  They were lying crumpled and bloodied in unnatural positions.  The third was stirring and moaning until Cyrus put a bullet through his brain.
    Several more shots popped downstairs, followed by the sound of a falling body, audible in the sudden quiet.  “Tango down on the stairs,” Larry called up.  “Lower floor clear.”
    The top floor was only one room, so that made it easy.  “Top floor clear,” I replied.  “Now let’s search this place real quick and get the fuck out of here.  Five minutes.  Marcus, Little Bob, you’ve got exterior security.”
    It didn’t take even that long.  There were three laptops and a bunch of loose-leaf papers in Arabic that got shoved into an assault pack.  Abu Tariq was quickly identified; he’d been shot through the upper chest about four times, but his face was intact and helpfully staring sightlessly at the ceiling.  We took quick pictures of the rest of the corpses, in case we’d inadvertently bagged somebody else of some import, then we were moving to the door to exfil.
    “Just in time,” Little Bob said quietly as we came downstairs.  “We’d better find another way out.  Four technicals just rolled up to the gate, and we’re going to have company really soon.”
    “Up,” I said, without hesitation.  “Onto the roof, over to the next building, and out that way.  Rendezvous at Point 559.”  We hadn’t driven the fighting vehicles on this op, so we weren’t worried about abandoning the trucks.
    We pounded back up the stairs, lugging our weapons and the intel we’d gathered.  I started to pause, but Jim grabbed me by the shoulder.  “I’ve got it.  Go.”  I nodded, then got out on the roof.  It was a short jump to the next house, though the homeowner was probably awake and wondering about the heavy footfalls on his ceiling.  Come to think of it, after the explosions next door, he might not be wondering that much.
    We got down to the ground, one at a time, holding security for each other as we went.  As pairs hit the ground, they scattered, heading into the warren of streets that was the local neighborhood.  Single and in pairs would be harder to spot, and evasion was our best hope of survival.  A stand up fight in the streets was not going to end well, especially as the local militias descended on us en masse.
    I waited around for Jim.  Thirty seconds after Little Bob and Cyrus had disappeared into the dark he arrived, slithering down the side of the building.  He hung by one hand for a second, then dropped, landing on all fours with a faint grunt.  “I’m getting too old for this high-speed shit, man,” he whispered.
    In spite of his old-man grumblings, Jim was on his feet quickly and smoothly.  “Ten more seconds,” he whispered, as I peered out of the compound gate, trying to see if the street was still clear.  I just nodded, and led the way, sprinting across the street and into a narrow alley.
    Ten seconds later, on the dot, there was another explosion from the direction of the target house.  By then, we were moving down the street a block and a half away, SBRs hidden