THE CHICKEN HUNT is Jim Scott Book #43. In it Army Sergeant Major Kenneth (Ken) Novak, is due to retire later in the day, has found a house to buy in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, and goes into a bank there to open a new checking account.
That day, and the next, cram quite a bit into the life of Ken. He gets the account open, and a date with the lady who opens it, gets his discharge, and is called back to active duty in the Army. Also, on the date he manages to stop a man from shooting one of the waitresses.
The reason for his call back into the Army, is to lead a three man team, including himself, on a mission to eliminate an ISIS terrorist...one he has had a past encounter with, in a location he has visited once in the past, along with the two men he will lead on the mission.
Unknown to Ken in advance, he knows one member of the extraction team that will get his team out of the country where the mission takes place. That extraction team consists of Jim Scott, Hector Garcia, and Bob Becker.
With the mission over, and Ken back to civilian life, his next bit of fun comes as he is going to the bank where he opened his new account to take the bank lady who opened if for him to lunch. On his way in he notices a man in a car in front of the bank, and likes nothing he sees of the man's body language. He likes what he finds inside even less...two men robbing the bank.
After dealing with that situation, he and the lady leave the bank by the rear door, and are met by a TV reporter and camera crew. Before he can stop the lady with him, she blurts out that the man in the car, who sped off while Ken was dealing with the two inside, is a "chicken" for running off and not assisting the two inside.
The "chicken" name sticks to the terrorist who fled the scene throughout the rest of the book, as Jim Scott, and the others involved in tracking him down try to get inside his head, with a good deal of success.
Using various bits of information they gather in, those looking for the chicken decide it is likely he may be somewhere in Missouri. While the hunters were planning their next move, the chicken decided to make a try to take down Ken, who he knew from news reports had been the one to ruin the bank robbery. While the chicken did manage to wound Ken slightly in his effort to kill him, he lost another man, who died because of the try on Ken, and the response of those protecting Ken.
Having done some deep digging on possible hiding places for the chicken, a systematic search of those locations was conducted, without success. However, three terrorists associated with the chicken decide they don't want to be terrorists any longer, and boldly drive down Bob's driveway to ask for his help in becoming former terrorists.
Jim convinced the men are being truthful, agrees to help them. With some of the information they supply, the hunting team come up with a plan to capture or kill the chicken...a good plan as it turns out.
