For a few moments now, Mike's ears had picked up on some noise ahead of him, too inconsistent for wildlife looking for food along the mountainside. If anything, it sounded an awful lot like a hunter looking for prey.
In his heightened state of vigilance, Mike had passed a couple miles of forest already, diligently scanning the perimeter for signs of his partner, Milan or the rest of Davis' gang. Several hundred yards back he'd picked up a trail again, a handful of heavy footprints left behind suggesting he was after Sawyer, the stockier of the two men.
So he'd began to close in on his position ever so carefully, his revolver at the ready, eyes taking in every square inch, every nuance and color of the forest, any unevenness that could provide a hideout.
He was pulled out of his deep concentration by a helicopter flying overhead, undoubtedly Devitt arriving at the cabin.
The dense forest left him with no opportunity to signal his position, and without a radio, any backup would still take a significant amount of time to reach them.
But there was hope after all.
Waiting until the whirring of blades disappeared off in the distance; Mike sped up his pace again, quietly following the frequent breaking of twigs ahead as he closed in on his target.
And suddenly, without any warning, that pine forest turned into a dense jungle out on the other side of the globe, the occasional bushes scratching his legs became ferns, palm leaves and vines, the air changing into the thick dampness of the pacific climate, the tense quietness surrounding him so loud that it dulled out any other of his senses.
This wasn't a war and he wasn't in Iwo Jima, Mike tried to tell himself over and over again to no avail, the scenes in front of his inner eye growing more vivid the closer he came to Sawyer's position.
But in a sense, it was a war, a voice inside his head insisted, more determined than ever before. It was a war against monsters who'd been hiding behind the safety of their badges to commit some of the worst crimes of all, undermining the integrity and honor that came with their chosen profession.
And the time had come to cut out the cancer.
Picking up his speed, Mike nearly tripped over a tree root hidden beneath a thick layer of pine needs, a lucky coincidence preventing him from getting hurt when several shots rang out, all of them aimed at his position.