The team's exfiltration was to be by helicopter, but the CIA pansies over the radio insisted this side of the border was too hot for a landing. If they were going to make it out of here, they would have to reach the rally point.

The whole setup for the mission was a lie, a feel-good rescue mission to draw Dutch's team into the meatgrinder doing the CIA's dirty work. To the pencil pushers, the men on the ground were expendable assets on a balance sheet. What did it matter to them if soldiers were being skinned alive? Dutch disagreed. His men were not expendable.

The thing lurking in the jungle was a towering, powerful, alien being with a reptilian body covered in fishnets and lightweight armor. Dreadlocks spilled out from behind its metallic mask which covered its fishlike mouth of split mandibles. The Predator was an intelligent, relentless hunter with a strange sense of honor and sport in the way it killed and made trophies of its prey. It moved acrobatically through the trees like a ghost, nearly invisible with its advanced cloaking camouflage, revealed only by the shimmer of its movement, the yellow flare of glowing eyes, and its strange clicking voice. A laser-targeted plasma cannon was mounted on its shoulder, the bolts bursting in brilliant blue explosions, showering sparks everywhere. A twin blade extended from its wrist, perfect for slashing, or stabbing into the gut. The Predator's vision was based on thermal and infrared signatures, making the body heat of living things stand out clear as day, but giving it a blindspot to the cold.

Mac was losing it after seeing his best buddy Blain go down. The two of them had been through the worst together. This fucker had killed his friend and he was determined to make it, whatever it was, pay in kind.

Dillon used to be somebody Dutch could trust. Something changed in him when he became a CIA spook. He'd gotten all of them out here on false pretenses, and painted a target on his back in the process. The weight of responsibility bearing on him for how he had failed Jim Hopper and how he had gotten Dutch's team and himself into this mess out here was evident. Mission-oriented, Dillon was trying his hardest to get the job done, whatever the cost.

Jim Hopper and his team of Green Berets were dead. They had been skinned alive, their bodies made into trophies.

Dutch was a charismatic leader with a strong sense of ethics and concern for his men. Bristling with muscle, Dutch was quick with a quippy one-liner, colored by his distinctive Austrian accent.

Billy was the squad's scout and expert tracker. In touch with his Native American heritage, Billy was said to fear no man, but whatever was out there wasn't a man. A sort of fatalism had come over him. Death seemed inevitable, but he would face this thing moving through the jungle in honorable combat.

Cool, wet mud seemed to give ideal protection against detection by the Predator's thermal vision. Smearing the muck all over your body might be enough of an edge to survive.