Chapter 5
SCOTTIE
It was quiet. As quiet as my mind becomes right before I squeeze the trigger.
The sand below my stomach quickly turned cold the moment the sun dipped below the horizon. After trekking across desert dunes for nearly five klicks, we’d arrived at our intended destination. And I hadn’t heard a whisper from the rest of the team since they disappeared down into the valley, headed toward a single, cement structure. I found my spot, bunkered beside one of the only decently covered locations—a single boulder that sand frequently sprayed from with every gentle, deceiving breeze.
Silence. No movement outside or around the building for hours. The team hadn’t breached the structure yet, and while I couldn’t see them, I knew where their camouflaged positions were due to the mission plans.
We were about seven minutes out from the intended breach time as we had determined, but the absolute desolation surrounding us had me more nervous than if a gun fight were to break out. The anticipation was killing me, and it confused me how the rest of the team could be so patient and quiet—that was my job.
Crackles over the radio entered my ear, and I inched my sniper rifle forward on the tripod, narrowing the aim down toward the single door on my side of the perfectly square building.
“Nothing. Let’s breach sooner than scheduled. Over.” It was Dom.
A carefree breeze danced across the rolling dunes, sending some sand slithering down my back, but I didn’t shiver. No matter how much it prickled, there was nothing that would force me to move. I was packed in tightly, hidden beneath a blanket that had more sand on top of it.
To everyone and everything else in this tiny fortress tucked in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t exist.
Peering through my scope, I barely caught the shadows that danced across the blackened sky as five figures slid like death down the side of the dune. And then they were gone like stars at dawn, my view obstructed by the building.
Tipping my head ever so slightly, as steady as the ocean waves that drummed against a beach, I scanned the area through my scope. Other than a scorpion darting beneath a boulder, there was nothing.
“All clear, Phoenix, over,” I radioed. The signal that I had eyes out here so they could enter.
“Roger, Crow,” Dom answered, and then there was silence again.
I inhaled deeply. Despite the stuffy summer heat that had dried sweat against my skin, goosebumps erupted in place of the moisture. How deceiving the jaws of death were out in the desert. If the sun didn’t wrap its hands around the meaty soul of life during the day, it was the abrupt change to absolute ice at night that was to be feared.
“What’s your status, Tank?” Dom asked through the radio, his voice low and steady, piercing through the radio, signifying Ford wasn’t with him.
“Nothing. We’ve literally found nothing,” Ford answered with a click.
“Repeat, please, over,” Bernie’s higher-pitched voice responded.
The hairs on my neck stood up. Every inch of nerves on high alert. There should’ve been targets inside the building. The Black Box was supposed to be in there with a team of men. That was the purpose of this entire mission—eliminate all UNSUBs, acquire the Black Box, and return to base.
“There isn’t even a scrap of paper left, Phoenix,” Ford said, his words shooting through my ear.
“We don’t see much dust on any of the tables, so they were here recently. There’s some boot prints and sand on the floor, but there’s nothing else, over,” Mikey explained. My stomach curdled with nausea. What was going on?
“Same with what Matrix and I have found,” Bernie responded.
Silence.
Not even that scorpion could be found anymore.
“Get out, now,” Dom suddenly cut through the absolute stillness. The urgency in his voice sent a visceral reaction of shivers through my skin. “Report, Crow.”
“Still nothing for me as well, over,” I answered quietly, scanning my surroundings again. It seemed even the breeze had stilled. Not a grain of sand shifted.
Something was wrong. Something had gone wrong before we’d even arrived.
But how?
Through my scope, I saw the building door crack open an inch, right as I heard it—
That all too familiar rumble of an engine.
But there was still nothing in my scope. “Hold up, Phoenix, I hear something,” I whispered through the radio.
“Copy that, Crow,” Dom replied, and the door remained still as they waited for my report before emerging.
The clatter of pistons firing roared louder and louder, yet as I continued to scan the surroundings, there wasn’t a single puff of smoke or cloud of sand rising in the air.
“Is that a fucking engine?” Mikey’s electronic voice entered my ear softly.
“Report, Crow,” Dom replied.
“That’s the thing,” I whispered cautiously, packing the gun tighter into my shoulder. “I don’t see anything. And I mean nothing.”
And then the rumbling cut like a light switch being flipped off.
The silence settled in the valley once more, a dome of tension tightening its grip on the death awaiting us.
I stood by. The team remained still, not moving a muscle.
Every breath drawn was strained for fear that I’d alert whoever, or whatever that was, to my position.
Adrenaline shivered down my skin.
The not-knowing was not something that they had warned me about in training. Waiting, yes. But this certainty that the grim reaper was waiting at the edge of the valley with the uncertainty of how he was going to show his scythe to take us from this world, that was not.
Scanning the desert once more, I heard it before I saw it—a familiar thwomp.
“GET OUT!” I screamed as a mortar shot through the sand, sailing roughly an inch above the ground.
The team raced out of the door just as the projectile made contact with the side of the building.
Cement flew apart, the blast shooting out in a cloud. And I couldn’t see them anymore.
I couldn’t hear them.
My ears rang as I swiveled the rifle, desperation filling the deadened pocket anticipation had left.
Another thwomp.
And a second mortar sailed through the sand from the same place as before.
“Phoenix!” I shouted. The blast reverberated through the valley. My body shook; my rifle trembled beneath the impact.
Yet Dom didn’t answer.
There was nothing but tan dust swirling into the sky.
They were gone. My team was gone.
The building collapsed, broken in shambles, shattering to the ground that vibrated beneath me. Sand sprayed upwards, clouding my surroundings. The valley was a ball of fragmented dirt.
Swallowing the panic flooding any of my focused rationale, I narrowed my scope in on the location that the two mortars had come from.
“Viper! Matrix!” I hissed into the radio, but nothing except crackles and a third thwomp met my ears.
A new mortar sailed into the cloud of debris raining hell down in the valley.
Bracing, it slammed into more of the building that I couldn’t see. The impact rumbled beneath my stomach.
“Bernie? Tank?” I asked through the radio as a groan of metal pierced the crumbling of cement and stone. “Anyone.”
The sand beneath my belly shook. Pebbles vibrated on top of the boulder next to me, bouncing onto the blanket shielding me from sight.
Squinting through the rising debris, a hole in the dune appeared. Like a tunnel cut through a mountain for a train to track through, a similar passage formed behind a garage-like door rising in the side of the dune.
Gradually, as grains of sand continued to drape across the dark opening like a waterfall made of dust, the area behind the camouflaged door exposed a much easier route to and from this crater that my team was trapped in. Glinting in the dark tunnel behind the new opening, the blurry outline of a vehicle idled, waiting.
“COME ON GUYS! SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING!” I shouted into the radio.
Peering through my scope, moonlight bounced off of the gatling gun mounted to the top of the lingering dune buggy.
Shit, shit, shit.
Sighting in the tan sand rail, its engine suddenly roared, and it blazed like lightning into the valley. Squinting through the debris from the blasts, I counted five insurgents, including the one standing behind the gun.
Sand sprayed out behind the buggy’s wheels as a second sand vehicle joined the first, toting the same occupancy.
Outnumbered and outgunned, my stomach dropped, and nausea curdled in my throat.
The trigger beneath my finger felt foreign, cold and unfamiliar.
And nobody was answering.
None of this was supposed to have happened. I was supposed to have been eyes and then cover for them as they slipped out of the building still undetected with the Black Box to then blow that shit up. Firing only when and if it was necessary—those were my orders. But now, I had no idea if they were dead or alive, and ten combatants had just arrived.
If I fired, it would give away my location. If I didn’t fire and my team was somehow still alive, then they would certainly not remain that way.
As if the entire dark valley evolved into the scythe of death, rising from the ashes were four dark figures. Steel frames of men morphing from shadows into solid beings appeared directly next to the dune vehicles. Two per buggy. Men that readied themselves to attack. Men I knew.
Seeing no other option, knowing that I had to do something to help, I squeezed the trigger. A sharp crack sounded through the air as my first bullet snapped through the skull of the man standing behind the front gatling gun.
Chaos ensued.
Metal clanged, grunts filled the crater, and a few cracks popped into the atmosphere.
As quickly as I could, I shifted my sights to the second gatling gun, but found that enemy combatant slumped over the gun. Already dead.
Returning the tip of my gun to the fight, my heart stopped. I shouldn’t have stared. I should have been more proactive, but nobody was giving me orders despite the sideways shit our mission had already gone, and the sight captivated me.
Two combatants dove at Mikey. With a sweep of his foot, one target slammed face-first into the dirt as if he was water crashing down a riverbank. Mikey continued the momentum, latching a hand onto the ankle of the other assailant and ripping him to the ground.
Within half a second, he aimed, and a bullet sliced through the air into one target’s face. Blood sprayed from the wound, as he whipped around.
But I was faster.
Squeezing my trigger, before the enemy managed to scramble up from the ground, a hole seared through his skull. Red trickled from the gaping wound.
And the most piercing glare of fiery blue snapped up. Rage blazed behind the pool of calm that normally swirled in his gaze. Was he angry at me? A shiver stole up my spine. Mikey only stared for half a second as he spun on his heel. In a single, fluid moment, he slipped a knife out of its sheath and threw it behind him.
The blade sliced into an oncoming assailant’s eye. So visceral, the squelch was almost audible in my head.
Lips parted, the enemy screeched in pain and horror, grasping at the hilt as Mikey raced the last couple steps, wrapped his hand around the man’s chin, and jerked sideways. Bones crunched. The combatant crumpled to the ground, his neck snapped, and Mikey darted to his next target.
Stunned, unfocused, something peppered into the ground near me, jolting back my attention. Grains of sand sprayed down beside me as the whir of an automatic weapon drummed through the shouts of the fight.
Swinging my scope, I locked sights onto a new man at the gatling gun—and he was aimed in my general direction.
One final inhale. One last exhale, and I squeezed my metal trigger.
He dropped like a rock plummeting to the bottom of the ocean. Head clanging against the gun, he slammed deadweight to the floor of the dune buggy.
And just like that, silence returned.
My heart hammered in my chest, pumping blood blindly into every available orifice. Lingering sounds of fist and fire pelting around me rang in my ears. My nose sucked in oxygen faster than it was available as the hell settled around me. The tips of my toes prickled, a thousand needles stabbing at the skin digging into my boots. The fabric crusted against my body grated like sandpaper as I waited.
Ragged breaths drawn through my balaclava covered in sand and dust filled my lungs, and I began to count.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Sweeping the area again, I counted four. Only four of the five operators from my team stood amongst ten dead bodies.
One was missing.
A wicked cackle sounded in my ear, echoing through the little valley.
Bernie.
Five.
All four men inhaled deeply, their animalistic, violent stances shifting to something more relaxed.
Mikey bent and snatched a body from the ground. Tossing it over a shoulder with surprising ease, my entire figure turned warm. Terrible timing, I knew that. I shouldn’t be feeling anything like this right after what happened.
Especially considering more enemy combatants, could show up, but watching him toss another fully grown man around like he weighed nothing did something to me…
“Let’s get these targets over to the building—or what’s left of it. Bernie’s waiting for them,” Mikey casually muttered over the radio.
That same wicked cackle sounded in my ear again. “You know me too well, Viper,” Bernie replied. Despite the growing urgency that more insurgents may arrive at any moment, I rolled my eyes. Unable to stop myself considering how haughty his words came across. As if this was something that they’d done on multiple occasions.
Wait…
Everything in me swirled with confusion. A strange sensation shivered across my skin, and everything suddenly seemed to be happening without me.
I stared down at my body, lying prone on the sand, still hidden beneath a blanket.
I watched as my own self scanned the surrounding valley, sweeping across the tips of the dunes that showed nothing in the dark of the night. Night vision still alerted me to nothing. Not a speck of sand moved near the tunnel that was left wide open.
And no one spoke as the rest of the team carried the ten bodies into the rubble. The four of them laid the bodies down on top of the shards of debris before scrambling away from them.
Suddenly, a fifth figure appeared around the far corner of what was left of the building. The last member of the team.
“It’ll blow in five,” Bernie said over the comms, joining the team. They all paused in front of the buggies.
“What’s down there?” Duncan asked, glancing toward the tunnel.
“Don’t know. Don’t fucking care. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ford answered.
“Crow, get your ass down here so we can leave before Bernie blows us up too,” Dom commanded.
“But what if the Black Box is down that tunnel?” I replied, quickly flipping the blanket off me and breaking down my rifle.
“Then we’ll fucking be sent back to these coordinates to go into the tunnel. But I’m in no hurry to die, and the orders didn’t include going down some unknown fucking tunnel. Let’s fucking go,” Dom replied as he climbed into the second buggy. Someone else joined him, while the other three jumped into the first vehicle.
Right. Orders were orders. Some of which also apparently included not telling me that they were fine after nearly getting blown up. Some of which included not actually trusting me to do my fucking job.
And they were going to get an earful of that once we hit the rendezvous point and got back to the outpost.