Chapter 1 #2
The room went quiet. Hoot leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Objective?” he asked.
“Secure Voss. Recover all digital and physical intelligence. Destroy nothing unless directed.”
The words recover all intelligence hung in the air. That was always where the trouble started.
Calloway stepped beside the map. “Our role is technical recovery and intelligence exploitation,” he explained. “Your team secures the objective. Once the area is controlled, we enter, identify sensitive materials, and begin extraction.”
“You mean you search it,” Voodoo said.
Calloway glanced at him. “We analyze what you recover.”
Voodoo gave a humorless smile. “Same thing with a nicer name.”
Nobody laughed. Calloway didn’t react. “The target has information that multiple governments would pay a great deal of money to possess,” he said. ‘That makes the target compound valuable and dangerous.”
“How dangerous?” Hoot asked.
Calloway looked at him. “Enough that we’re here.”
The answer bothered Hoot. Not because it was wrong. Because it wasn’t an answer.
Flint stepped in before the silence stretched too long. “Praetorian has clearance for this operation. They are attached as mission specialists. Their people follow your command structure while on objective.”
Hoot looked at Calloway. “Rules of engagement?”
“Same as yours.”
“Chain of command?”
“Your team lead has tactical command.”
“Mission priority?”
Calloway hesitated. Barely. But Hoot saw it. “Complete the objective,” the PSG leader said.
Something about the wording bothered him. Not bring everyone home. Not protect the team. Complete the objective.
Hoot had spent enough years around operators to know that small details mattered.
“What’s in the vault?” Hoot asked.
The room went quiet. Calloway looked toward the screen. “Data storage devices. Research documents. Financial records.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast for his liking. Hoot watched him carefully. Everyone lied. The trick was figuring out why.
The briefing continued. Routes. Timelines. Communications. Extraction plans. The pieces came together. A simple mission with a simple objective. One that the team had carried out numerous times.
Except Hoot had been doing this too long to believe in simple.
When the meeting finally broke, Calloway stopped him near the door. “Lieutenant.” Hoot turned. The PSG leader held his gaze. “I understand your concerns.”
Concerns? Yeah, he had them. As second in command, it was his job to have concerns and find the answers to them. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know why I have them.”
A faint smile crossed Calloway’s face. “Trust isn’t given easily in your profession.”
“No.”
“And in mine?”
Hoot looked at the Praetorian logo on Calloway’s gear. A Roman helmet, pierced dramatically through its center by a spear aimed skyward. A promise of protection.
At first glance, it looked impressive. Clean lines and sharp edges.
The kind of emblem designed to make people stand a little straighter when they saw it.
A modern interpretation of an ancient Roman helmet, the image carried the weight of an empire—strength, discipline, loyalty.
The helmet’s full-face design hid every human feature beneath it, leaving only the suggestion of the warrior underneath.
That was the part Hoot didn’t like.
A helmet was supposed to protect the man wearing it. This one erased him.
The dark visor gave nothing away. No eyes. No emotion. No hesitation. Just an empty stare measuring anyone who dared challenge it. The crest above the helmet rose like a blade, a reminder of the Praetorian guards who had once stood beside emperors, sworn to protect the powerful.
A hell of a symbol.
Too perfect.
Hoot had spent enough time around operators, politicians, and contractors to know that people chose symbols for a reason. They wanted you to see what they wanted you to see. Honor. Strength. Protection. A shield between the innocent and the dangerous world outside.
But sometimes the shield was just another weapon.
“Depends what’s behind the mask,” he finally answered.
For the first time, Calloway’s expression changed. Only for a second. But Hoot saw something there. It wasn’t anger or offense, but recognition. Like maybe Calloway understood the question better than he should.
“We’ll find out soon,” Calloway said before walking away. Hoot watched him go before following suit.
As Hoot stood and slung his rifle, Bullet fell into step beside him. “You really think life keeps score?” he asked picking up the thread of their earlier conversation.
Hoot stared toward the mountains beyond the wire. Jagged black silhouettes against a sky beginning to surrender to dusk. He honestly didn’t know the answer. He’d spent too many years surviving one mission at a time to figure out whether the universe kept ledgers.
But sometimes... usually in the quiet moments before an operation... he wondered whether every trigger pull, every decision, every life taken—even the necessary ones—left invisible marks somewhere. Maybe on a soul. Or maybe on a conscience. Maybe nowhere at all.
Deep down he hoped Voodoo was right. But he feared the kid might be.
And somewhere deep inside, in a place he rarely acknowledged, Hoot couldn’t shake the feeling that if karma really did exist... She wasn’t just the bitch everyone called her. She was patient. And patient hunters always caught up eventually.