{"product_id":"the-hunted-isbn-9781400070381","title":"The Hunted","description":"The Adventure of a Lifetime\u003cbr\u003eBecomes an Unimaginable Nightmare.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eA thrilling new novel from the Every Man series!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eJohn Majors and three friends–Mike, Hollis, and Dave–go to Thailand for the eco-adventure of a lifetime rafting on the Pai River. But they find more than they bargained for. \u003cbr\u003eFrom the fleshpot temptations of Bangkok to the beautiful and terrifying environs of Northern Thailand’s vast wilderness areas, they find themselves tested at every turn.  When separatist terrorists attempt to kidnap them in the wilderness, the four men are stranded deep in the jungle, pursued by gunmen toting AK-47s, and finally trapped in a cave with nowhere left to turn. If they hope to escape, they must face their deepest fears and put their lives–and their souls–on the line. Their struggle to survive, escape, and experience God’s grace through it all forms a thrilling tale of courage and endurance.\u003cbr\u003eFred Stoeker–one of the men behind the phenomenal Every Man series–and best-selling novelist D. S. Smith join forces to bring you a compelling novel that combines the action and suspense of a thriller with real-life faith and insight for God’s men.\u003cb\u003eFred Stoeker\u003c\/b\u003e is the coauthor of the best-selling Every Man series, including \u003ci\u003eEvery Man, God’s Man\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEvery Man’s Battle.\u003c\/i\u003e He regularly writes and speaks to men about sexual purity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eD. W. Smith \u003c\/b\u003eis the best-selling author of more than seventy novels and has served as an editor for several publishers. Among his books are the novelizations for the Hallmark miniseries \u003ci\u003eThe Tenth Kingdom \u003c\/i\u003eand the first \u003ci\u003eX-Men\u003c\/i\u003e movie, and numerous \u003ci\u003eStar Trek\u003c\/i\u003e novels.\u003ci\u003e11:40 p.m., November 14\u003cbr\u003eMae Hong Son Province, Northern Thailand\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eScared. The word didn’t even begin to describe how \u003cbr\u003eI was feeling. Words like \u003ci\u003efrightened, terrified, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003esheer panic \u003c\/i\u003ecame closer. Yet, somehow, I tried\u003cbr\u003eto catch my breath and stay silent at the same time as my heart raced and every cell in my body told me to run. Beside me, my best friend, Mike, crouched next to the tree I was hiding behind, peering back into the darkness.\u003cbr\u003eThe black Thailand jungle pushed in on all sides. Earlier in\u003cbr\u003ethe day, the jungle had looked exciting to me, full of promise,\u003cbr\u003emystery, and things to explore. Now, at just a little after midnight,\u003cbr\u003eit had become a humid, terror-filled nightmare.\u003cbr\u003eMy two other rafting buddies, Hollis and Dave, were hiding\u003cbr\u003eten feet away behind another tree. I could see only their\u003cbr\u003evague shapes in the faint moonlight, and I couldn’t hear them\u003cbr\u003eat all over the pounding of my own heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Lord, I don’t want to die. \u003c\/i\u003eI repeated the thought, like a\u003cbr\u003eprayer. \u003ci\u003eDear Lord, please don’t let me die. Not now. Not here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eThe men who had been our guides, and who now wanted\u003cbr\u003eto kill us, crashed through the brush. It sounded to me like\u003cbr\u003ethey were very close behind us. The noise they made seemed\u003cbr\u003efantastically loud, like they were giant horror movie monsters.\u003cbr\u003eMy mouth was completely dry and I wanted to throw up\u003cbr\u003ewhat was left of the fish dinner I’d eaten a few hours ago, back\u003cbr\u003ewhen everything was still wonderful, still a happy adventure.\u003cbr\u003eBut I knew that if I did, they’d hear me. They’d find me. They’d\u003cbr\u003efind my friends. And our lives would be over.\u003cbr\u003eI took shallow breaths, trying to be as quiet as I could,\u003cbr\u003eworking to calm myself, listening to every sound around me,\u003cbr\u003eno matter how small.\u003cbr\u003eA mosquito buzzed at my ear. I stopped myself from brushing it away.\u003cbr\u003eSwearing echoed through the trees, followed by shouting\u003cbr\u003ein a Thai dialect I didn’t understand. Of course, I didn’t under-\u003cbr\u003estand anything but the most basic Thai words and phrases, just\u003cbr\u003ewhat I’d picked up listening to a language tape for a few hours\u003cbr\u003ehere and there over the last couple of months.\u003cbr\u003eTwo months ago, I hadn’t even planned on coming here.\u003cbr\u003e“John, we have to move,” Mike whispered, but his voice\u003cbr\u003esounded more like a shout in my ears.\u003cbr\u003eThe faint light of the half moon through the jungle canopy\u003cbr\u003emade everything seem surreal, almost dreamlike. I could tell\u003cbr\u003ethe men who were after us were coming, somehow following\u003cbr\u003eus, crashing through the Mae Hong Son Province jungle like\u003cbr\u003eelephants on a stampede.\u003cbr\u003eI wanted to hold my hand against my chest to silence my\u003cbr\u003epounding heart for fear that the men with the guns could hear it.\u003cbr\u003e“John,” Mike whispered again.\u003cbr\u003e“If we move, they’ll hear us,” I mouthed back, my thread\u003cbr\u003eof a voice sounding to my ears like a shout telling everyone our location.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCalm down! \u003c\/i\u003eThe thought, a warning ringing inside my head, helped me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCalm. Calm. Think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Doesn’t matter. They’ll find us here,” Mike said. “We have\u003cbr\u003eto keep moving. You ready?”\u003cbr\u003eI glanced back in the direction of the men chasing us. I\u003cbr\u003ecouldn’t see them, but I could hear them. There were at least ten of them.\u003cbr\u003eWe were supposed to be sleeping. They had planned to\u003cbr\u003ewait for us to go to sleep before they tried to kidnap us. But\u003cbr\u003eMike had overheard two of our guides talking about it earlier\u003cbr\u003ein the minivan, thinking we didn’t understand them. Lucky\u003cbr\u003efor us, Mike knew just enough of the Thai language to get the\u003cbr\u003egist of what they were saying. He’d traveled all over the world\u003cbr\u003eon his rafting expeditions, and had picked up bits and pieces\u003cbr\u003eof all kinds of languages along the way. He had kept quiet,\u003cbr\u003ewatched them, warned us, and then gotten us all out of camp just in time.\u003cbr\u003eRight now, I wasn’t sure what good that would do us.\u003cbr\u003eThe men who were chasing us knew this jungle. I didn’t.\u003cbr\u003eNeither did Mike or Hollis or Dave. I was a city guy. My wilderness\u003cbr\u003eexperience was limited to the Cascade Mountains back\u003cbr\u003ehome in Oregon. And I’d spent time in a few elk-hunting areas\u003cbr\u003emy father had taken me to years ago. But I knew nothing about\u003cbr\u003ethe mountains and jungles of northern Thailand.\u003cbr\u003eNothing.\u003cbr\u003eExcept for studying a few maps of the river area we planned\u003cbr\u003eon rafting, we had left all the rest up to our guides. The same\u003cbr\u003eguides who had turned on us and were searching for us now.\u003cbr\u003eI heard one of the guys I was with take a step.\u003cbr\u003eSuddenly, it seemed like the world around me exploded.\u003cbr\u003eTwo of our would-be captors, or their friends, opened fire\u003cbr\u003ewith their AK-47s, spraying the trees and brush like they were\u003cbr\u003etrying to mow down everything in front of them.\u003cbr\u003eWe were in front of them.\u003cbr\u003eWith a sickening thud, a bullet smacked into the tree right\u003cbr\u003ebeside my head, sending bark and splinters into the side of my\u003cbr\u003eface before I even had time to react.\u003cbr\u003eHollis yelled, “Run!” and took off away from the gunfire.\u003cbr\u003eDave followed him quickly.\u003cbr\u003eSo much for my plan of hiding. I stayed firmly planted\u003cbr\u003ebehind the tree, and Mike crouched at my knees as another\u003cbr\u003eblast of gunfire from our former guides tore through the trees and underbrush.\u003cbr\u003e“Now,” Mike said. “Follow Hollis.”\u003cbr\u003eAs a team, just as we had worked on so many other things\u003cbr\u003eover the years, Mike and I moved at the same time, sprinting\u003cbr\u003ethrough the brush following our two panicked rafting buddies.\u003cbr\u003eThe brush ripped at my arms, branches jabbed at my legs, the\u003cbr\u003erough ground beneath my feet threatened to trip me with every moment.\u003cbr\u003eSomehow, both Mike and I managed to stay on our feet\u003cbr\u003eand running, the shapes of the looming trees of the jungle\u003cbr\u003enothing but dark shadows to be passed under and around.\u003cbr\u003eBehind us, more gunfire cut through the trees. Another shot\u003cbr\u003ecame frighteningly close. I saw it cut off a branch beside me.\u003cbr\u003eIt seemed the people who wanted to first kidnap us to gain\u003cbr\u003eappropriate international publicity, now just plain wanted us\u003cbr\u003edead. They didn’t seem to care about their earlier plans. It\u003cbr\u003eseemed we had made them angry by escaping and messing with their agenda.\u003cbr\u003eAfter what felt like an eternity of slashing our way through\u003cbr\u003ethe brush, bullets flying after us, we caught up with John and\u003cbr\u003eHollis. Hollis, overweight and out of shape, had stopped and\u003cbr\u003ewas fighting to catch his breath. Even though he owned a\u003cbr\u003esporting goods store in Hood River, right at the base of Mount\u003cbr\u003eHood, and snow skied all winter, he still was in bad condition.\u003cbr\u003eMike and I had worried about him a great deal through the\u003cbr\u003eyears on our tougher rafting trips. In this heat, running on this\u003cbr\u003eterrain, he wasn’t going to make it very far.\u003cbr\u003eThe faint light from the half moon seemed far brighter\u003cbr\u003ethan it should. Full-blown panic throttled all of us. I knew\u003cbr\u003epanic never got a person anything but killed, no matter what\u003cbr\u003ethe situation was. And that’s exactly what panic would do to\u003cbr\u003eus now. We had to calm down and think carefully, as clearly\u003cbr\u003eas was possible under the circumstances. Otherwise, we were\u003cbr\u003egoing to be listed as missing tourists in the remote northern\u003cbr\u003eregions of Thailand, and no one but our families and friends would care.\u003cbr\u003eI was sweating like I had just finished a hard workout at\u003cbr\u003ethe gym. I took two long, deep breaths, making sure to exhale\u003cbr\u003ecompletely. My mouth tasted like paper. Which brought up\u003cbr\u003eanother point. We were going to need water, and soon, at this\u003cbr\u003erate. Mike had rousted us out of the camp so quickly and\u003cbr\u003esilently that I hadn’t thought to bring anything except what\u003cbr\u003ewas in my waterproof fanny pack. No water.\u003cbr\u003eOf course, if we hadn’t moved as fast as we had, we would\u003cbr\u003ebe kidnapped by now. Or dead.\u003cbr\u003eI glanced at the other three. Mike had only his emergency\u003cbr\u003efanny pack as well, strapped to the small of his back. Dave had\u003cbr\u003ea small daypack, and Hollis had nothing.\u003cbr\u003e“You all right?” Mike whispered to Hollis. Hollis only nodded,\u003cbr\u003ehis breathing sounding like he might keel over at any moment.\u003cbr\u003eI stood up straight and forced myself to think and continue\u003cbr\u003eto breathe deeply. We had to figure out where we were,\u003cbr\u003eand then outsmart the men following us.\u003cbr\u003eSomehow.\u003cbr\u003eI glimpsed the slice of moon shining through the trees.\u003cbr\u003e“The river’s to our right,” I whispered to Mike. “We’re\u003cbr\u003eheaded upstream and toward it slightly. We’re going to be too\u003cbr\u003eeasy to follow at this rate.”\u003cbr\u003eMike stood from where he had been kneeling beside Hollis\u003cbr\u003eand looked around. “You’re right. The way we’re crashing through\u003cbr\u003ethe jungle, a blind man could follow us without a cane.”\u003cbr\u003e“We can’t keep this up,” I whispered, glancing at Hollis. It\u003cbr\u003ewas clear he wasn’t going to be running that much farther.\u003cbr\u003e“They’ll expect us to keep going the way we’re going,”\u003cbr\u003eMike whispered back. “Or to head for the river to try to follow it back into town.”\u003cbr\u003e“Agreed,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e “We go left then,” Mike said. “As slowly and as quietly as\u003cbr\u003ewe can. Let them go by us.”\u003cbr\u003eMore gunfire sprayed the jungle, not as close as it had been\u003cbr\u003ebut still sounding far louder than I wanted to think about. We\u003cbr\u003ehad to do something, and do it soon.\u003cbr\u003e“The road’s to the left,” Dave said. “Won’t they expect us\u003cbr\u003eto go back there to try to get out?”\u003cbr\u003e“We go under the road,” Mike said. “And keep going.\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a bridge over a stream about a half mile above the\u003cbr\u003ecamp. Remember? We get into the water and go up that stream\u003cbr\u003eand find a place to hide in the mountain area. They won’t look for us up there.”\u003cbr\u003eI nodded, remembering the large bridge and running\u003cbr\u003ewater I had seen just after we made camp this afternoon. The\u003cbr\u003ebridge was a good thirty feet over the streambed, and the\u003cbr\u003estream itself had looked shallow enough to wade in. “It might work. Let’s do it.”\u003cbr\u003eMike put his hand on Hollis’s shoulder. “Can you move?”\u003cbr\u003e“I’m fine,” Hollis said, brushing off Mike’s hand.\u003cbr\u003eI knew that Hollis and Mike were having trouble dealing\u003cbr\u003ewith each other, especially after what happened in Bangkok the\u003cbr\u003eprevious night. Their relationship had been sorely strained. They\u003cbr\u003emight not ever work it out fully. But we had to get out of here\u003cbr\u003ealive, so they had to deal with each other now, like it or not.\u003cbr\u003eActually, after last night, I was still uncomfortable around\u003cbr\u003eHollis. I knew it wasn’t very Christian of me, but there were\u003cbr\u003etimes I found it easier to just walk away than face up to things.\u003cbr\u003eI knew that I was in the wrong, but I was finding the concept\u003cbr\u003eof forgiveness and grace a bit difficult under the circumstances.\u003cbr\u003eAfter Hollis confessed his sins to us, I hoped time would\u003cbr\u003eheal the wounds. After all, we had been rafting companions\u003cbr\u003esince college fifteen years before. I wanted to get over my anger\u003cbr\u003eand lingering sense of betrayal.\u003cbr\u003eMaybe that was optimistic. After all, we might not have much time left.\u003cbr\u003e“We go as slowly and silently as we can,” Mike said. “Try not to break any branches, leave any trail.”\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, right,” Dave said.\u003cbr\u003eI agreed with Dave. Four men from Portland, Oregon,\u003cbr\u003esneaking around in Thailand’s jungles not leaving a trail. Not possible.\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll lead,” Mike said. “Hollis, stay close to me. Dave and John, bring up the rear.”\u003cbr\u003eWithout waiting for an argument from Hollis, Mike\u003cbr\u003estarted off to the left, headed at an angle away from the men\u003cbr\u003efollowing us and back toward the Mae Hong Son Loop. That\u003cbr\u003eroad was the only way in and out of the hundreds of miles of\u003cbr\u003enorthern Thailand’s mountains and jungles. It connected the\u003cbr\u003etown of Mai Hong Son and the capital of the province, Chiang\u003cbr\u003eMai. We had flown in from Bangkok to Chiang Mai early this\u003cbr\u003emorning. That now seemed like an eternity, a lifetime ago.\u003cbr\u003eBehind us to the left, more machine gun fire cut into the\u003cbr\u003ejungle, more shouting in a language I didn’t understand. What\u003cbr\u003ewere four adult men from the Pacific Northwest doing here?\u003cbr\u003eHow had it come to this?\u003cbr\u003eA stray bullet smashed through the brush between Dave\u003cbr\u003eand me, thudding into the ground and sending up a spray of\u003cbr\u003edirt. It froze me for a moment. I could have been standing\u003cbr\u003ethere. Really, it would only have taken an extra step, just a second\u003cbr\u003eof difference one way or another.\u003cbr\u003eI might have died right in that spot.\u003cbr\u003eBut I didn’t have time to think about that now.\u003cbr\u003eDave disappeared ahead of me and I forced myself to keep\u003cbr\u003emoving, stepping quickly past the place the shot had hit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear God, please help us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eIn the dark jungle of northern Thailand, with men chasing\u003cbr\u003eus with machine guns, it felt to me like God had forgotten us. I\u003cbr\u003esure hoped I was wrong.An Every Man Novel","brand":"WaterBrook","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305234551013,"sku":"NP9781400070381","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400070381.jpg?v=1767739871","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-hunted-isbn-9781400070381","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}