Chapter 88
NOVA play: Suffocate by Kayzo, Bad Omens
“Alright, NOVA, let’s do this.” I cracked my knuckles before settling in and allowing myself to hyperfocus on the cameras.
NOVA let out a small chirp of affirmation before bringing my attention to the team of men currently creeping down the footpath.
“Let the first team go through. Once they get close to the house, we’ll set off your recording and lure them back in.
They have another team of five waiting to see if they trip any wires.
Once the second team sees the first wave get through safely, they might venture into the path, and we can take them all out at once when the first team doubles back. ”
I nodded. “Got it.”
NOVA’s instructions made sense, but it was freaking hard to let the heavily armed men clear the narrow foot path and make their way up to the house.
If they didn’t take the bait, all that stood between us was a door with several dead bolts and a window made of bulletproof glass.
They would get through it eventually if it came to that, so I was literally ripping my nails off with my teeth as I forced myself to wait.
Finally, the motion detector went off again, and the next wave of men came into view on the feeds. Apparently, they’d decided it was safe to do so, as the first team had made it through.
“Now!” NOVA said, and I hit the key that activated the Bluetooth speaker we’d hidden behind some shrubs in the path.
I couldn’t hear the recording, but I knew the men could, as they all froze, their heads jerking in the direction I knew the speaker was hidden.
Come on, come on, come on…
My stomach sank as the leader of the first team made a hand signal, and only three of the men doubled back to check out the recording.
“Shit!”
“What is it?” Jay’s mechanical voice came through my headset, and I let out a frustrated huff.
“The plan only kind of worked. Two men are staying out of range.”
Jay didn’t respond. Instead, he stalked through the house with the smooth grace of a predator, unclipping his MP5 from his hip as he went.
Using the side door, he slipped around the outside of the cabin so he could come up to the invading men without using the door they’d been planning on using as a point of entry.
“Light them up, Milo,” Jay ordered softly, and I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“Almost there…” I hummed back as the three men rushed back to the footpath to meet the other team of five.
Once they were all safely in the narrow, stone channel, I didn’t think.
I just hit the red button on the remote detonator Jay had given me, and gasped.
The result was instantaneous.
One second, the men were rushing through the path; the next second, the entire screen went white.
Once the cameras cleared, my mind could barely process the fact that there was very little of the men left.
Probably not even enough to bury.
Holy crap.
I heard the explosion all the way from inside the house, and my heart was pounding in my chest as I glanced at Jay’s feed just in time to watch him slide out from around the corner with his MP5. He ruthlessly lit up the two remaining guys as they tried to scatter for cover.
My mouth fell open as Jay used the small, but high-powered machine gun to literally cut one of the dudes in half.
Jeebus.
We weren’t in Kansas anymore.
That was so messed up.
I didn’t have time to freak out about it, as NOVA was calmly informing me that another round of assailants was on their way.
“The next wave is coming in,” NOVA informed me.
“Ok, on it,” I gasped, feeling a strange mix of adrenaline and dopamine rushing through me at the fact that our plan seemed to be working.
“Jay, get to the front, it looks like they’re coming up with vehicles… two black SUVs, I can’t tell how many guys are in them,” I said, and Jay immediately abandoned the two corpses he’d left in our garden to head back into the cabin.
He reloaded his weapon as he cut through the house, crouching down by one of the front windows and poking the nose of his machine gun out through the crack between the shutters.
I watched the outdoor feed carefully, waiting for the SUVs to pass over the spike strip I’d laid out earlier. Seconds before they sped over the marker, I hit the button on my keyboard I’d programmed to extract them.
The vehicles had been speeding through too fast, and the abrupt puncture of the tires sent them into a fishtail. I whooped in triumph as one of them collided into the other, sending both cars to violently roll and screech across the gravel entry point.
One car landed on the driver’s side, with the underbelly of the car facing the cabin, and the second one ended up fully upside down, rear wheels still spinning in the aftermath of the wreckage.
I waited in silence to see if they would get out of the cars, but the men seemed to understand that this was a trap and were hesitant to leave the safety of the vehicles.
“They’re trying to find cover. They’ll probably try to use the wreck to their advantage. We’ll be here all night if you don’t smoke them out quickly,” NOVA said grimly, and I nodded.
I’d had two bombs left over from the trap in the footpath, and I’d set them by the entrance to the mountain road for just such an occasion.
This entrance was too open to hope to get them all at once with the bombs like I had in the footpath, but I was hoping I could drive them toward the cabin where Jay could pick them off with his MP5.
After several long minutes of us waiting in silence, the men finally began to work their way out of the wrecked SUVs, doing their best to use the car as cover as they slid out of the windows and skylight.
“There are eight of them,” I whispered into my headset.
“Which means we’re missing two more,” Jay murmured back.
“Yeah, plus Seb, and maybe Luke.”
“Not worried about Luke,” Jay replied, and I let out a frustrated snort as I watched the men from the SUVs methodically work out their positions behind the wrecked cars.
They spoke to each other using hand signals that I didn’t understand, and the excitement I’d been feeling from earlier was starting to morph into worry.
Eight men were a lot for Jay to face all at once, and they had decent cover… The fact that we were missing at least two other guys was making me panic.
“Milo, stay focused. Follow the plan. Stay calm,” NOVA said, her familiar voice soothing me.
I nodded.
“Right. The plan… I’ve got this…”
Grabbing my second detonator with my left hand, I made sure to position my shaking fingers on my right over the keys programmed to set off the strobes.
“I’m going to hit the last bombs and drive them toward you,” I informed Jay through the headset, and I watched him nod through the feed, never once looking away from the sight of his gun perched in the window.
“Do it,” he ordered.
I hit the button, and then all hell broke loose.