One clean double-tap. The leader crumpled without a sound.

Kozak slid out the opposite side, low and quiet as a snake. He circled wide, using the cover of thick ferns and his own raw, unfiltered senses. The rain started again, a blessing. It masked the soft click of his selector switch to semi-auto.

He heard them before he saw them. Boots in the mud. Three, maybe four. Cartel special forces, the ones with the US-surplus optics and Russian grenades. They moved like hunters who’d cornered their prey.