13. All Is Lost #2
The lead soldier drops. The rounds catch him in the thigh, bypassing the ceramic plate of his body armor. He goes down without a sound, disciplined even in injury, rolling into the snow to minimize his profile.
The others return fire instantly.
Thwip-thwip-thwip.
Suppressed rounds chew into the bark of Boyd’s tree, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. Quiet in a way that’s wrong, just the hiss of gas and the wet thud of impact.
Boyd moves.
He doesn’t stay static. He dives to the next tree, rolling through the snow, firing as he goes.
Crack.
He hits another man in the shoulder, spinning him around.
One man holding a squad. For a moment, he does it. He holds them. He uses their confusion, their fear of the dark, the very storm they use to hide. He makes twelve rounds feel like fifty. He’s everywhere at once.
But they have the numbers. They have the firepower.
“Flanking left.”
The leader barks the order.
“Suppress him. Move up.”
Two of the soldiers break formation, circling wide through the trees to cut off his retreat. They box him in against the ridge, closing the kill box.
Boyd sees it.
He pivots. He fires at the flankers, forcing them to take cover behind a fallen log.
His slide locks back.
Empty.
The sound rings small, metallic, and final. It echoes in the sudden silence.
He drops the magazine into the snow. His hand goes to his belt, reaching for the reload.
Click.
He freezes.
His hand pats his belt again. Frantic. Searching.
Empty.
The spare magazines. They’re in the truck. In the go-bag currently crushed under two tons of steel at the bottom of the ravine.
He’s out of ammo.
The soldiers sense the lull. The firing stops. They advance, movements sharper, bolder. They know the sound of a dry weapon.
“He’s dry. Move up.”
Boyd curses, a low, savage sound ripping through the night.
He holsters the empty gun.
He pulls the knife. The Ka-Bar. Six inches of black carbon steel against six automatic rifles. A suicide run.
He looks at me.
His eyes go wild, apologetic, devastated. The math is done. The sum is zero.
“Plan B.” He mouths the words.
“Boyd, no,” I whisper into the scarf.
He doesn’t listen. He shifts his weight. He prepares to charge. To die on his feet, buying me seconds. To be the distraction.
“Run, Iris.”
He lunges from cover.
“Stop.” I tear the word out of my throat, scrambling up from behind the rocks. I step into the open. Into the blinding glare of the tactical lights. I make myself a target. “Hold fire.”
“Iris, get down.” Boyd skids to a halt in the snow with a roar. He tries to put himself in front of me, shielding me with his body, but I step around him. I push him back.
I raise my hands. High. Empty.
“Do not shoot.”
The soldiers freeze.
Laser sights drift from Boyd’s chest to mine. Red dots settle on my sternum.
“Secure her.” The leader steps forward. No face. A balaclava and a cold look behind clear tactical glasses. He moves with the arrogance of a man who already won.
“If you shoot him,” I keep my voice steady, projecting over the wind, “the deal is off.”
The leader signals a halt with a raised fist.
“There is no deal, Doctor.”
“I have a dead man’s switch.”
I channel every ounce of authority I possess. The trauma surgeon who orders others out of her trauma bay when they compromise a patient. The woman who stole the chart. The woman who learned how to lie from the man standing behind me.
“The data sits on a timed release. Encrypted server. If I don’t punch in a code in thirty minutes and every four hours after that, it goes to the press. It goes to the FBI. It goes to the oversight committee. The senator burns.”
The leader stops. Cocks his head.
“Bluff.”
“Is it?” I step forward, putting myself deeper into the line of fire.
I hold his gaze. “Can you afford to take that chance? If I die, the code doesn’t get entered.
If he dies, I let the clock run out. We walk out of here, or deep state secrets align with the morning news cycle.
Your boss goes to prison, and you become a liability to be cleaned up. ”
Silence stretches. The wind howls, filling the void.
The leader looks at Boyd, standing there, knife in hand, ribs heaving, and then back at me. He runs the numbers. He knows the senator. He knows failure isn’t an option, but exposure is worse.
“Stand down.”
The leader lowers his weapon.
“Iris,” Boyd growls. “Don’t do this.”
“Drop the knife, Boyd.”
I keep my gaze on the leader. I don’t look at Boyd. If I look at him, I’ll break.
“It’s over.”
“No.” He shakes his head.
“That’s an order.” I turn to him then.
He looks at me with betrayal, with fury. Like I stabbed him. He would rather die fighting than see me taken. He would rather bleed out in the snow than fail the mission.
But he has to trust me.
Trust me. I pour everything I can’t say into that look. I have a plan. Just stay alive. I need you alive.
Slowly, agonizingly, he lowers the knife. His fingers open. The blade drops into the snow with a muffled thud.
“Smart.”
The leader gestures to his men.
“Grab her. Leave him.”
“Sir.” One of the soldiers glances at Boyd. “He’s a witness. Protocol says—”
“He’s a ghost. Weaponless, without comms, five miles from the nearest road in a blizzard. Leaving him here is a death sentence anyway. We have the package. We have the timeline. Move.”
They swarm me.
Rough hands grab my arms. Zip-ties bite into my wrists, cinching tight enough to cut circulation. They drag me away from the rocks, back toward the road.
I stumble. They haul me up.
I look back.
Boyd stands in the snow. Motionless as they take me.
He doesn’t look like a man given a death sentence. He doesn’t look like a man who surrendered.
He’s memorizing their faces, counting their numbers, noting their weapons, their formation, their discipline.
He’s calculating how to kill them.
Our gaze holds one last time across the distance.
I’m coming for you.
The silent promise hangs in the cold air between us. Louder than the wind. Hotter than fire.
Then the men shove me forward, over the ridge, and the darkness swallows him whole.