Chapter 18 #2
Tommy slams the blast doors shut behind them. Trapped.
And Odin is waiting.
The dog launches from behind cover, ninety pounds of trained aggression. He takes down the point man before they even register the threat. The man screams as Odin's jaws lock on his weapon arm. His rifle clatters away.
The corridor erupts in chaos. They're trying to engage Odin without hitting their own man. Trying to reorganize. Trying to understand what just happened.
"Khalid, you're up! Rear corridor—now!"
Khalid appears on screen, moving fast. He engages the trapped eastern team from the opposite direction. They're caught in a crossfire—Khalid from one side, Odin creating chaos in their ranks, nowhere to retreat because the blast door is sealed behind them.
Brutal. Efficient. Over in thirty seconds.
Twelve hostiles neutralized.
The feed shows twelve bodies. Twelve men who woke up this morning not knowing today was their last day. Twelve families who'll get notifications. Twelve lives ended because I made a call.
My throat constricts—the same feeling I had when word reached my dad was gone. The knowledge that some decisions can't be unmade.
"Jesus Christ," Mercer breathes over comms. "Remind me never to piss you off, Doc."
But there's no time to process. No time to feel. The southern team is still pushing hard against Mercer's position. The northern team is regrouping despite casualties.
"Movement on thermals," Tommy warns. "They're pulling back. Repositioning."
"For what?" The displays show a tactical shift I don't understand. Why pull back now when they have the numbers?
Then it hits me. Odin sees it too. His alert behavior changes from combat aggression to detection mode. He's alerting on chemicals.
My stomach drops.
"Tommy, where's our water intake?"
"Southwest corner, why..." His face goes pale. "Oh shit."
"They're not regrouping." The pattern becomes clear. "They're sending a team through the water system. Khalid, get to the southwest maintenance access. Now!"
Khalid runs. The cameras track him, rifle up, Odin ahead of him alerting frantically on something in the air. Chemical traces. Residue from operatives who've been handling the Committee's binary weapons.
They reach the maintenance access just as four Committee operatives emerge from the water intake tunnel, dripping and armed.
Khalid fires first. Drops two before they fully clear the entrance. The other two return fire immediately, professional and deadly. Rounds spark off metal pipes. Khalid takes cover behind a support column, outnumbered and pinned.
One of the operatives is moving to flank him. The angle is perfect. Khalid won't see it coming.
"I need backup in the southwest corridor!"
"Can't!" Kane responds, his rifle barking continuously. "Pinned down north. They're pushing again with everything they have!"
"Southern team is on us!" Mercer adds. "We're holding but can't disengage!"
Khalid is alone. And in ten seconds, that flanking operative will have a clean shot.
The decision could cost his life.
"Khalid, I'm sealing the corridor. You'll be trapped with them."
"Do it," he says without hesitation.
Tommy hits the controls. Blast doors slam down with a hydraulic hiss, cutting off the southwest corridor. Khalid and four hostiles—now two—in close quarters. Odin barking. Gunfire echoing off metal walls.
The feed shows Khalid fighting for his life. He's young. Not as trained as the others. But he has Odin. And he has heart.
The flanking operative rounds the corner. Khalid pivots, but he's a split-second too slow. The operative's weapon is coming up—
Odin goes for the man's throat. Not the arm. Not the leg. Throat. The operative goes down screaming, and Odin doesn't let go. Khalid shoots the last hostile.
They're closing on him when the feed goes dark.
"Tommy, what happened?"
"They shot out the camera."
"Get it back!"
"I can't!" Tommy's voice cracks. "We're blind in there!"
The dead screen stares back at me. My mind fills in the blanks. Khalid dying alone in that corridor because I sealed him in. Because I made the call. Because I played tactical coordinator with a kid's life.
Seconds stretch.
Then Khalid's voice comes through comms, shaky but alive. "Southwest corridor secure. Four hostiles down. Odin's hurt but breathing."
My legs go weak. I grab the console edge. "Copy that."
“We need to be ready when you open the perimeter."
He's right. The tactical display shows the Committee pulling back. Northern and southern teams both retreating to their vehicles. Dragging wounded. Leaving bodies.
"They're running," Stryker confirms. "We broke them."
"Count bodies," Kane orders, his voice tight. "I want confirmation on all hostiles accounted for."
The team does a sweep while I coordinate from operations center. Thermal signatures. Vehicle departures. Cross-reference with initial attack force estimates.
"Twenty-seven Committee operatives down." The number sits heavy. "Five vehicles departed the scene with approximately fifteen survivors, multiple wounded among them."
"Any of ours?" Kane asks.
"Odin's injured but stable. Sarah took some shrapnel but she's functional. Everyone else is..." I check vitals monitors. "We're operational."
"Good." Kane sounds exhausted. "Then we held."
We held. We survived. Against forty-plus elite operatives, we survived.
I'm counting thermal signatures for the third time when I realize—the commander Mercer chased into the trees never appeared in any exit vehicle.
Neither did Mercer.
"Where's Mercer?" Rourke's question cuts through my realization.
The cameras. Southern sector. Eastern corridor. Northern perimeter. Southwest maintenance access.
No Mercer.
"Mercer, report." Kane's voice is tight. "Mercer, come in."
Static.
"When did we last have eyes on him?" My mouth is dry.
"Eighteen minutes ago. Southern sector. He was pursuing a Committee commander who broke from the main force. Single target, high-value." Stryker pauses, and I hear something shift in his voice. "Wait. Pull up that footage again, Tommy."
Tommy throws the recording onto the screen.
Mercer chases a single figure into the tree line.
The figure is moving with purpose, not panic.
Leading. Luring. And even through the thermal imaging, even with the distortion and distance, I can see the distinctive gait, the military bearing, the way he moves despite obvious injuries.
The burn scars visible even on thermal signature.
Victor Kessler.
"Son of a bitch," Stryker breathes.
Kane's voice comes through, hollow and terrible. "No. No, he wouldn't...”
But the footage doesn't lie. Mercer follows Kessler into the trees, weapon up, moving with professional caution but moving nonetheless. Trying to eliminate the threat. Trying to end the man who nearly killed Kane outside the Whitefish facility.
The camera angle can't follow them into the dense forest. They disappear from view.
And Mercer never comes back.
"He baited him." Kane's voice is hollow. "Kessler made himself a target Mercer couldn't ignore. Made it look like he was fleeing, wounded, vulnerable. And Mercer went after him."
The silence that follows is crushing.
"The assault," I realize slowly. "The casualties. The retreat. All of it was theater."
"A brutal, deadly distraction," Kane confirms, and I can hear the guilt bleeding through every word. "They let us win the fight so Kessler could take one of ours. I left him alive. I had the shot and I didn't take it. And now he has Mercer."
"You made a tactical decision," Stryker says firmly. "Based on...”
"I made it based on wanting to be a better man." Kane cuts him off. "Wanting to prove to Willa that I wasn't the person who threatened her father. That I'd changed. And Mercer's paying the price for my conscience."
"Kane...” I start.
"He promised, didn't he?" Kane looks at me now, and I see something breaking behind his eyes. "After the Whitefish facility. Kessler promised he'd take from me what I took from Hart. Make me watch. Make me feel what Hart felt."
The words Kessler said outside the burning facility come back with brutal clarity: ‘I'll take her from you like you took Hart from me. I'll make you watch her die. Make you feel what he felt.’
But he didn't come for me. He didn’t come for Willa. He came for Mercer instead.
"Why Mercer?" Khalid asks quietly. "Why not go after Willa like he threatened?"
"Because Mercer was easier to isolate," Rourke says grimly. "And because taking one of Kane's team hits just as hard as taking the woman he loves. Maybe harder. We're his responsibility. His brothers. This way Kessler gets revenge AND a high-value prisoner to interrogate."
The tactical display shows the last known positions. Mercer's thermal signature disappearing into the trees. No sign of struggle. No indication of where Kessler took him.
Just gone.
"Mercer's been taken." The words stick in my throat. Making it official. Making it real.
The operations center goes silent. Twenty-seven Committee casualties. Fifteen wounded.
But they got what they came for.
They got Mercer.
And now they have everything he knows. Every operation. Every contact. Every secret we've kept buried.
Twenty-four hours until the attack.
We just lost our window.