Chapter 11 #2
The radio crackles again. This time it's Cara from the communications room. "Sensors just lit up. Multiple vehicles approaching from the north. Fast. They're coming in hot."
I key my radio. "All positions, weapons free when they enter the kill box. Controlled fire. Pick your targets. Don't waste ammunition."
Acknowledgments come back. Finn from the western window. Zeke moving to the eastern position. Cara confirming sensor feeds.
I take position at the main door. Clear sight line down the access road. Range markers visible on the trees Finn tagged earlier. The SUVs appear around the curve. Three vehicles. Moving fast but not reckless. Tactical approach.
They stop at the treeline. Doors open. Figures emerge wearing tactical gear and carrying suppressed rifles. I count maybe a dozen. Trained contractors. Moving with disciplined coordination that says they've done this before.
Body armor. Night vision mounts on their helmets. Hand signals as they fan out into assault formation.
They advance toward the compound. Covering each other. Using terrain for concealment. Whoever trained these people knew what they were doing.
But they're advancing into a prepared defensive position held by people who've done this before under worse conditions.
The first contractor enters the kill box.
I don't fire. Not yet. Let them commit. Let them think we're not here or not ready.
More follow. Then more still. Most of the team exposed now.
Finn's voice on the radio. "Ready."
"Wait for it."
They're committed. In the open with limited cover.
"Fire."
Finn's rifle cracks first from the western window. Suppressed but still audible in the cold air. One contractor drops. Clean shot.
I open up with controlled bursts from the doorway. Torso shot on the nearest target. He goes down hard. I shift to the next. Double tap. He collapses.
Zeke's firing from the eastern window. Controlled shots. Another contractor staggers, hit but the body armor catches it. The impact disrupts his movement, but doesn’t take him down. Zeke fires again. The contractor falls.
They scatter. Disciplined response. Hitting cover, returning fire, trying to establish a defensive position.
But they're in the kill box now. Overlapping fields of fire from multiple positions. No good cover. Nowhere to go but back the way they came.
Finn drops another one. Zeke gets one trying to flank east. I put rounds into the tree one is using for cover, forcing him to move. When he breaks from concealment, a chest shot catches him. He folds.
I shift position. Move to the next window. Better angle on the contractors regrouping near the lead SUV. I fire. Miss. Adjust. Fire again. Hit. The contractor spins, goes down clutching his side.
The assault breaks. They fall back toward the vehicles, dragging the wounded with them. Textbook retreat under fire.
But they leave bodies behind. One wounded contractor, crawling toward cover leaving a blood trail in the snow.
"Cease fire," I call over the radio.
The shooting stops. The surviving contractors retreat down the access road. Engines rev. They're pulling back to regroup.
I key the radio again. "Finn, status?"
"Multiple hostiles confirmed in the kill box. One wounded crawling toward the treeline. Want me to finish him?"
"Negative. Let him crawl. We need prisoners."
I move outside. The temperature's dropped. Snow starting to fall in light flurries. The wounded contractor's a stone's throw from cover, bleeding into the snow from a shoulder wound.
I approach with my weapon up. He sees me coming. Reaches for his sidearm with his good hand.
"Don't." My voice flat. Operational. "Move and I put the next round through your head."
He freezes. Smart. Self-preservation winning out over the paycheck.
I kick his weapon away. Zip-tie his hands behind his back. I drag him toward the compound. He's heavy but adrenaline makes it manageable. Zeke appears, helps me get the contractor inside.
We drop him in the main room. He's fit, experienced bearing. A trained operator who chose the wrong contract.
Helena appears in the doorway. Takes in the wounded contractor, the blood trail across the floor, my expression. Something shifts in her face when she looks at me. Wariness. Recognition of what I just became out there.
Her breathing changes. Quick. Shallow.
Not fear. Something else.
"Gunshot wound to the shoulder," I tell her. "The artery's intact or he'd be dead already. Stabilize him. We need him conscious for questioning."
She doesn't argue. Just moves into doctor mode, getting supplies, applying pressure to the wound. Clinical detachment that probably serves her well right now.
But I see her hands tremble when she passes close to me. Her pupils dilate when our eyes meet. My body responds—heat low in my gut, awareness of exactly how she felt under me last night.
Not now. Push it away.
The contractor's watching her work. His eyes shift to me. Recognition there. Not my face, but what I am.
"You're military," he says through gritted teeth.
"Was."
"The client said this was a soft target. Isolated compound. Minimal resistance."
"The client lied."
The radio crackles. Cara's voice, urgent. "Second wave incoming. The sensors are picking up movement from the east and south simultaneously. They're trying a pincer maneuver."
I move to the tactical display. Two teams approaching from different vectors. Coordinated assault designed to split our attention and overwhelm defensive positions.
Standard playbook. And exactly what I expected.
"Finn, hold the western position but watch for eastern movement. Zeke, you've got east primary. I'll take south. Cara, call out positions as they develop."
I look at the wounded contractor. "Helena, keep him stable. We'll finish this conversation after we deal with his friends."
The next assault is more brutal than the first.
The contractors hit both positions simultaneously. Tactical coordination. Suppressing fire while they advance. Using smoke grenades to obscure sight lines.
Finn holds the western window, adjusting fire to cover the eastern threats when they present. Zeke's position takes heavy fire but he holds, putting controlled rounds downrange. I rotate between the southern window and supporting the eastern position when the pressure gets too heavy.
The firefight grinds on. Minutes stretching into what feels like hours. The contractors are experienced. They don't break easy. Cover, coordinated movement, forcing us to burn ammunition faster than I'd like.
We're holding. Barely, but holding.
A contractor makes it within spitting distance of the compound's eastern wall.
Too close. Zeke can't get an angle without exposing himself.
I move to the window, acquire the target through the scope.
The contractor's face fills the sight picture—young, determined, trained. I squeeze the trigger. He drops.
Another one tries the same approach from the south. My shot catches him mid-advance. Body shot, just above the armor line. He crumples, blood spreading across the snow.
The assault's losing momentum. They're taking too many casualties. Skilled operatives know when to cut losses.
"They're pulling back," Finn reports. "The eastern team is in full retreat."
"South too," I confirm.
I watch through the scope as the contractors fall back. Coordinated withdrawal under covering fire. Disciplined to the end.
But they leave another one behind. This one's not wounded. Just pinned down behind a rock outcropping, cut off from his team during the retreat. No way back without crossing open ground under our fire.
"We've got one isolated on the eastern perimeter," I tell Zeke. "Can you cover while I get him?"
"On it."
I move outside. The snow's falling heavier now. The contractor sees me coming, tries to bring his weapon around. I'm on him before he can complete the movement. Rifle butt to his face. He goes down. I secure his hands with zip-ties, drag him inside.
Minutes later I've got him in the communications room. His hands are secured, weapon confiscated. He's younger than the first one. Scared but trying not to show it.
Now we've got two.
Helena's already finished stabilizing the first contractor. She looks at the second one, assesses him for injuries. Bruising on his face from where I hit him. Nothing serious.
"He's uninjured. Just scared."
"Good. Fear makes people talk."
I separate them. The first contractor stays in the main room with Zeke watching him. The second one stays in the communications room with Finn monitoring. Don't want them coordinating stories.
I start with the older one. The one who's been doing this long enough to know how bad his situation is.
I pull up a chair. Sit. Death in my eyes. Cordite still on my clothes. He can see exactly what's coming.
"You're going to tell me everything about this contract. How you were hired. How many operators. Where they're staging. All of it."
"And if I don't?"
I lean closer. Show him the operational headspace still running behind my eyes. "Helena patches you up just enough to keep you conscious while I ask again. And I've got all night. We can do this easy or we can do it hard. Your choice."
He looks at Helena. Back at me. Calculates his odds. Realizes he doesn't have any.
"Okay," he says quietly. "Okay. I'll talk."
He does. Tells us his crew was hired through an intermediary less than a day ago. Offered premium pay for immediate deployment to a compound in Alaska. Told minimal resistance. In and out. Eliminate one witness. No complications.
"Who hired you?"
"Never met him. Got the job through a broker we've worked with before. High-end contracts, federal-level work. He said the client was connected, had resources, needed discretion."
"The broker give you a name?"
"No. That's not how it works at our level. The client stays anonymous, payment goes through offshore accounts, we do the job and disappear. Standard arrangement."
I lean closer. "How many total operatives?"