Chapter Eight #2
The bang came through the microphones a heartbeat later, sharp even at distance. Viper moved on the sound, Wolf behind him, and the upstairs became a series of controlled commands that overlapped just enough to make my pulse climb.
“Hands.”
“Down.”
“Right clear.”
“Second room locked from outside.”
The words locked from outside made me look at Raven before I could stop myself. His expression had tightened in the same instant, and whatever distance the vehicle had given us from the people inside the farmhouse disappeared.
Wolf whispered, “Do not open occupied rooms until the floor is secure.”
Viper acknowledged and kept moving as Hawk’s voice interrupted from the ridge.
“Movement rear structure. Male exiting east. Black jacket, heading tree line.”
Jackal was already moving. “I see him.”
The camera gave us nothing after that. I listened to Jackal breathe hard once, then Hawk calmly narrated the pursuit from hundreds of meters away.
“Runner just crossed the gravel. He is now cutting behind the greenhouse. Thirty meters from east hedge.”
Jackal did not answer.
“Twenty.”
Raven touched the map and showed me Jackal’s position turning before the runner’s did.
“He’s cutting him off,” I whispered.
The comms picked up a crash through brush.
Then Jackal’s voice came through, breathing harder now, “Got him.”
His voice had changed completely just like in training. None of the man who put Hawk in a headlock over the last clean coffee mug existed in it.
Wolf answered, “Hold him there.”
“Copy.”
The farmhouse was secure less than three minutes later, leaving the rear structure as the only active problem on the property. One of the guards inside had fired through an upstairs window toward the courtyard when Bear approached the east door. Hawk called the angle before the second shot came.
“Rifle, upper north window.”
Wolf stopped the crossing.
“Smoke the yard.”
Bear sent a canister into the open space between the buildings.
White smoke spread low across the gravel, swallowing the direct sight line from the window and giving Wolf and Viper enough cover to move toward the rear wall.
Hawk kept the window pinned from the ridge without firing while Bear worked the pedestrian door.
“Frame reinforced,” Bear said. “Lock isn’t.”
A heavy metallic strike came over comms, followed by another before Bear said, “Open.”
Viper went first, and the gunfire inside lasted less than ten seconds before the channel fell quiet again. Wolf’s voice returned, colder and more controlled than the chaos around him.
“Site secure. Raven, bring the support units forward. Mercer stays with you until medical is inside.”
I finally let out the breath I had been holding through half the operation.
Raven keyed the German support channel and sent the waiting teams toward the property. Ambulances and investigators would take the main road once the perimeter was controlled, while Raven and I drove in through the service approach after Wolf cleared us.
The farmhouse looked smaller when I saw it through the windshield, and that bugged me more than I expected. A place capable of holding this much violence should have looked larger somehow, more dramatic, like evil required architecture grand enough to announce itself.
We parked behind Bear’s vehicle, where a detained guard sat on the ground near the wall with his hands secured behind him.
Jackal stood several feet away, watching the tree line while another operator from the German support team took custody.
The front of Jackal’s shirt was streaked with dirt from the pursuit and a fresh tear ran along one sleeve.
Wolf met us near the rear steps.
“Main house is clear. Eleven women alive between both buildings. Two need immediate medical attention. One guard dead, four detained.”
The clean delivery could not soften the number. “E-eleven?” I asked.
“Eleven here.”
The emphasis on here kept the number from sounding like good news. I looked toward the second building.
“The others?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Raven adjusted the strap on his field bag. “Where do you want us?”
“Admin room first. German team is handling evidence until you photograph the systems. Mercer, if medical asks for language help, you go with them. Otherwise stay with Raven.”
I nodded while Wolf’s eyes rested briefly on the plate carrier Bear had fitted around my shoulder.
“Shoulder holding?” He asked once Raven was out of earshot.
“Yes.”
“Tell Bear if it changes.”
He left before I could decide whether the exchange felt normal. Once I crossed the rear door, the language from the rehabilitation website became impossible to reconcile with what was actually inside.
The front rooms still had the staged furniture from the website, pale chairs and framed landscape prints arranged around a sitting area that probably looked convincing during inspections.
The hallway beyond it smelled of disinfectant and damp fabric.
Two doors upstairs had deadbolts mounted on the corridor side.
Another had a small camera screwed into the wall above it and no handle on the inside.
German medics moved between rooms while officers photographed each lock before opening anything they had not already cleared.
I followed Raven into what had been advertised as the administrative office.
The first cabinet held actual passports, dozens of them inside clear plastic sleeves divided by country, with photographs clipped to the front and small handwritten codes replacing the names printed inside.
Some were genuine documents taken from the women upstairs.
Others had new pages or altered photographs.
A second drawer held blank identity cards and partially completed residency documents waiting for photographs.
Raven stopped beside me.
“Don’t touch anything yet.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He photographed the cabinet before moving closer.
The desk held a laminator, two printers and a stack of small photographs cut to passport size.
None of the women in the photographs were identified by name, just a code written on the back in black marker.
A17, C04, B22 and D09 appeared across the first set, numbers that made filing easier by removing the part where anyone had to say a woman’s name.
The wall beside the desk carried a printed movement schedule.
Cities appeared in one column, dates in another, followed by vehicle identifiers and the same coded designations from the photographs.
The word ready appeared beside some names.
Others were marked hold or replace documentation.
Two lines on the movement schedule were crossed out across multiple rows.
Raven leaned closer. “Moved yesterday.”
I found the timestamp and counted the codes twice before I trusted the number.
Seventeen women had been transferred off the property before dawn, leaving eleven women alive inside the buildings.
In total, twenty-eight women had passed through the same system we had been trying to reconstruct from missing-person reports.
The same number we had assembled from the missing-person overlap at the compound.
A medic appeared at the office door. “Mercer?”
I turned.
“One of the women understands some English, but she’s not responding to the men. Can you come?”
I followed him upstairs.
The room at the end of the hall had once been a bedroom. Three narrow mattresses sat along one wall beneath windows that had been screwed shut. A fourth mattress lay on the floor. There were no phones, suitcases, purses or personal items anywhere in sight.
Two women were already with medics. A younger woman sat in the corner between the bed frame and wall with her knees pulled against her chest, watching every uniform in the room as though calculating the distance to the door.
Jackal was crouched several feet from her.
He had removed his helmet and one glove. The bare hand rested open on his knee while the gloved one stayed visible beside it, palm turned upward. His weapon had been slung behind his back so the barrel pointed away from her.
“I’m staying here,” he said quietly. “I’m not coming closer.”
The woman did not answer. Jackal looked toward me without standing.
“She understands some English. Doesn’t want anyone touching her.”
The last sentence carried no judgment, and I lowered myself beside the doorway rather than walking into the room.
“My name is Mia. No one needs to touch you unless you say it’s okay.”
She looked at me.
“H-hospital?” she whispered.
“A doctor needs to check you, but you can tell us if you need a woman to stay with you.”
She glanced toward the male medic beside the bed, and Jackal caught it immediately. He stepped back without making her ask, giving her a little more space.
“We can leave,” he said. “You choose.”
The medic stepped into the hall and the woman watched Jackal for another few seconds.
His voice softened in a way I had never heard from him before. “Nobody’s moving you unless you’re ready. Take your time.”
He put unusual care into the way he spoke to her, and I thought of the red ribbon in his hand from the night before, then let the connection go before it became a question I had no right to ask. Jackal stood only after she nodded that it was okay, then left the room.
I followed him into the corridor.
“Jackal.”
He looked back and for a second I almost thanked him, which felt strange considering I had done nothing worth thanking him for and neither had he. He had simply behaved like the frightened woman in that room was a human being.
“You okay?” I asked instead.
His expression changed by a fraction.
“Ask me when we’re not standing in this fucking place.” He went downstairs before I could ask anything else, which was probably the only answer I needed.