Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
LUNCHBOX
It started with static.
Soft, low—just a whisper in my ear. Then Alphabet’s voice broke through the haze:
“You’ve got movement. One vehicle, blacked-out. Two klicks west. No lights. No plate. Parking near the service road.”
I didn't respond. Just exhaled slow. O’Rourke was still sitting across from Voodoo like this was some fireside heart-to-heart.
Bones was already moving. I knew that before Alphabet said his name.
“Bones is in motion.”
Damn right he was.
Like a ghost, I’d drifted in through the kitchen and used each external sound from the bartender talking to Voodoo walking to muffle my movements. Voodoo was more than capable of handling O’Rourke on his own. We were just here to back his plays.
Play time was over though, so I shifted my weight, slow and easy.
Gliding through the door that separated the kitchen from the bar, I moved silently until I was ready to let them know I was here.
The cracked floorboard under my boot groaned just enough to earn O'Rourke's attention again. He blinked like he was coming out of a daydream. Like maybe he forgot he wasn’t the only one in the game. Or maybe he’d just forgotten what it meant to have a real team.
I kept my voice low, calm. “How many exits you say again?”
His eyes narrowed but not before his faint jerk revealed his surprise. “Why?”
“Because,” I murmured, hand slipping beneath the edge of my jacket, brushing the cool metal of the M84 flashbang tucked under my arm, “we’re about to find out if you’re full of shit.”
“Second vehicle. Same direction. They’re leapfrogging. Military pattern. This is a hit, Lunch.” Alphabet’s voice was tight now. Controlled. Focused.
Voodoo canted his head, enough to catch me in his periphery without ever taking his gaze off O’Rourke.
I leaned just enough to the side to glance toward the shaded windows. They gave us cover from a sniper, but not much else. Just that slow build of pressure in my chest, like the moment before a detonation.
I knew that feeling. It never lied.
“You done?” I said, lifting my chin to Voodoo. When he described O’Rourke as a theatrical asshat, he hadn’t been kidding. I hated the guy but at least I’d never had to get to know him.
The smirk vanished from O’Rourke’s face. His eyes flicked toward the bar, the kitchen—he was calculating. Fast. Too fast.
Voodoo had him by the front of his shirt and hauled him up before he could finish his thought. “Tell me you didn’t bring all this down on purpose.”
“I didn’t—”
“Tell me with your hands behind your back.”
Shoving him against the wall, Voodoo caught the flex-cuff I tossed him from my belt. The fact O’Rourke didn’t struggle told us a lot. Either he was innocent, or he was damn sure someone else was doing the dirty work so his hands stayed clean.
Either way, we didn’t have time to play this game.
“Team of four. Two dismounting now. Kitchen and side hatch. No chatter on open comms. All tac-quiet. They’re professionals.”
Alphabet kept us in the loop using the drone we’d parked in a fuel station sign an hour earlier.
I dropped low and moved behind the bar. Bone-dry. No one stashed there. No surprise. Sandy never came back from her little walk.
The air shifted. I smelled it—burnt oil, sweat, friction.
“One’s on the roof,” Alphabet said. “He’s got overwatch on the front.”
I slipped the flashbang from my coat. Clipped. Primed.
Three seconds.
Tick. Tick. Boom.
I lobbed it toward the kitchen door just as it creaked open. The door didn’t even get a chance to swing fully before the grenade hit the tiles and—
KRACK!
A pulse of white light and bone-shaking sound tore through the back half of the bar.
I moved. Hard and fast. Low. My gun was up before the echo died. The Remington 870 bucked once, the bark deafening even after the flashbang.
One down in the kitchen. Camouflage fatigues. No insignia. No name. Just a blank mask and suppressed MP7 clattering to the floor.
Not cartel.
Not mercs.
Wetwork.
Bones came in through the side door. I saw him just as he moved—a shadow moving like smoke, silent and brutal.
The second intruder barely got a shot off before Bones had him up against the cooler, elbow driving into his throat, knees snapping tendon. The man collapsed in a heap.
Not saying a word, Bones just gave me a nod, then moved toward the stairs leading to the basement tunnel. He knew better than anyone: there was always a second wave.
“Roof’s clear,” Alphabet called in. “Sniper’s down. Looks like Bones got him from below—made him step back onto a pressure plate. Cute trick.”
“That was mine,” I muttered, jogging back to the table as Voodoo dragged O’Rourke upright again. “Little welcome mat surprise.”
O’Rourke’s face was pale. “You brought a kill team?”
“No,” I said. “You did.”
“Wait,” Alphabet cut in, voice sharp now. “Third vehicle just rolled up. This one’s different—four doors, black SUV, full tint. VIP transport pattern.”
That stopped us. Voodoo and I both looked at O’Rourke. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
He wasn’t in control of this anymore.
“One passenger. Tall. Moving with security detail but not talking. Looks... command.”
Bones was already moving back up, gun raised, one hand signaling silently—two fingers, wide apart. Heavy armor. Likely rear guards.
Who the hell was this?
O’Rourke stared at the window like a man watching the gallows being built. “It’s Vega.”
“No.” I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. “Vega’s not a person.”
He shook his head, eyes wide. “They made him one.”
I swore under my breath. Sure, turn a project into flesh was one way to disguise it and utilize it.
Something you could move around. Something deniable.
A puppet with a dozen strings leading back to places no one could follow.
It was also bullshit. Odessa was a dead end and we were hardly in some science fiction world where you could bioengineer a program into a person.
The door banged once. Hard. Controlled.
Then again.
I turned to Bones. “Play it loud or play it quiet?”
His gaze went to the last flashbang. The shaped charge under the bar. The collapsible SMG I hadn’t even drawn yet.
I glanced at O’Rourke. “You’ve got five seconds to tell us what they want.”
He swallowed hard. “Not you. Not just Voodoo. They want the list. The drive.”
Of course they did. Odessa. Six years ago. This ghost wasn’t about to come back to life. We didn’t just bury it. We incinerated it.
Bones keyed the mic. “Alphabet, loop the feed. Make it look like we’re still inside.”
“Already done. They’re watching a frozen frame from two minutes ago. Whole team’s ghosted.”
With that, Bones was already moving again, pulling a service panel behind the bar open. Tunnel access.
I jammed the last charge under the table, synced it to remote, and kicked the chair over for good measure.
O’Rourke struggled. “Wait—what are you doing?”
“Keeping the myth alive.”
Voodoo tossed him down the tunnel first then followed with Bones right behind them, silent and cold. I hesitated for half a second, glancing once more at the door.
It banged again. Harder. Louder.
“Package on the doorstep,” Alphabet said. “Whatever’s behind that door—doesn’t knock twice.”
Exactly.
I dropped the detonator behind the bar, and slid down into the dark.
Three seconds later, the world upstairs went white.
The blast above ground was surgical. Controlled fury. A shaped charge designed not just to destroy, but to confuse. Shrapnel laced with magnesium and thermite—no simple flash, no simple burn. It would eat through anything soft and light up the rest like hell’s own fireworks show.
I landed hard in the tunnel, knees absorbing the impact as I rolled. Dirt walls. Reinforced ceiling. Stale air and narrow space, just wide enough to crawl single-file if it came to that. No one had used this exit in a decade—not until Bones found it last week during recon.
“Confirm detonation,” Alphabet’s voice cracked through my earpiece, distorted by the sudden interference.
“Confirmed,” I muttered, brushing dirt off my vest and pushing forward. “Party favors worked.”
“Thermal’s useless,” he replied. “They’re blind. All they’re getting is heat bloom. You’ve got sixty seconds max before they fan out.”
I could already hear the muffled scuffle of boots behind me. Bones was in motion. Always first in, last out. Voodoo was just ahead, dragging O’Rourke, who was coughing from smoke or panic—maybe both.
“Keep moving,” Bones said, his voice quiet but sharp. “This way splits. I’ll take the right. Loop back and converge two blocks east.”
“What about our tail?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then, “I’ll handle it.”
I didn’t like it—but I didn’t argue.
Voodoo didn’t either. Just kept O’Rourke moving.
We pushed down the left tunnel, the heat from the blast bleeding through the earth above us like sweat through skin. Dirt shifted underfoot. My bag was heavy with what we didn’t get a chance to use—and what no one behind us could be allowed to find.
Twenty meters in, we hit the first grate. I crouched, yanked a pry tool from my belt, and wrenched it free with a sharp metallic groan.
Alphabet was back in my ear.
“They’re breaching. Entering from the front. Sending drones to sweep. No heat signatures, but they’ve got air sniffers. You need distance.”
“They see Bones?”
A pause. “Not yet.”
That was the answer I needed.
Voodoo dropped into the storm drain below us, boots splashing in runoff and old rainwater. I followed, then reached up and pulled the grate back into place.
Metal scraped over metal. Sealed again.
O’Rourke stumbled, slipping on the wet concrete. Voodoo caught him, none too gently.
“You should’ve walked away,” Voodoo muttered, voice quiet but dangerous.
“I tried,” O’Rourke wheezed. “You think you’re the only one with ghosts?”
“I buried mine,” Voodoo said. “Looks like yours came back with friends.”
We moved fast now, under the street, guided by old maps and old instincts. Alphabet fed us location markers from the drone uplink. Street cams were offline—fried by our EMP burst before the bar lit up.
But they were still up there.
Moving. Coordinating. Hunting.
And not just for us.
“They’re not pulling out,” Alphabet warned. “They’re spreading. Staggered leapfrog. Room by room. Street by street.”
“That’s not a hit,” I muttered, glancing at Voodoo. “That’s a net.”
“Which means we’re not the only fish,” he said grimly. “They’re looking for the drive.”
Shit. We didn’t have it. I doubted they would believe us.
We rounded the next turn, ducking into an alcove of corroded pipes and graffiti-painted concrete. I keyed the mic.
“Bones. Talk to me.”
Static.
Then—“Two down. Third’s armored. I’m bleeding.”
Not a complaint. Just a fact.
“How bad?”
A pause.
“Worse than it sounds.”
“Worse than your standards or human standards?”
Bones gave a low chuckle. “Keep going. I’ll meet you back at the safehouse.”
I glanced at Voodoo, who shook his head.
“We’re not leaving you.”
“Yeah,” Bones said. “You are.”
And then—
Silence.
I clenched my jaw and turned back to the path. No time for sentiment. Not down here.
We moved.
Faster now. No chatter. No lights.
O’Rourke stumbled again. I didn’t catch him this time.
Let him bleed.
When we finally surfaced, it was behind an abandoned garage just off the highway. Two miles from the bar, maybe more. The sun had just started its descent—drenched everything in gold and shadow.
I slammed the hatch behind us.
Alphabet’s voice came back, clearer now. “You’re clean. Thermal sweep passed over. Bones bought you time.”
I didn’t respond.
Voodoo walked O’Rourke to the rusted-out SUV we’d parked the night before. Slammed him against the hood.
“Start talking,” he growled.
“I told you everything,” O’Rourke gasped. “Vega’s a group now. They took what was left of the operation, turned it into something new. Self-regulating. Self-funding. You think someone gave the kill order?”
He looked up, eyes wide.
“No. They are the kill order.”
That stopped us both.
A project given autonomy. Access to black string funding, legacy assets, terminal authority. No oversight. It made no damn sense and at the same time, it made sense in the worst possible way.
O’Rourke looked between us. “You think this ends here? You think burning that bar did anything but scratch the surface? Vega doesn’t care about your past. It’s coming for your future.”
Voodoo didn’t flinch.
“You know what they really want, Lunchbox?” O’Rourke asked me.
I nodded. “You said they wanted the drive.”
O’Rourke shook his head. “No. That’s just the key. They want what it unlocks.”
Which meant we were already behind.
Voodoo turned away from him, muttering low. “Get us to the fallback. Now.”
I opened the SUV’s rear door. “You sure on taking him with us?”
He glanced back at O’Rourke—bleeding, sweaty, pale.
Then he looked at me. Cold.
“Dead men don’t talk.”
That meant O’Rourke still had a purpose.
But I didn’t trust him. Especially not around Gracie.
Then again, if “Vega” really was coming, they weren’t going to knock again. They would just break down the door next time.