Chapter 3 Village Outskirts, South America
VILLAGE OUTSKIRTS, SOUTH AMERICA
Lark shifted on top of the crumbling clay wall and adjusted her earpiece, ignoring the thumping of her heart rattling behind her ribcage.
She focused on the low stucco buildings that formed a maze of narrow streets, their sunbaked tiles glowing in the afternoon light.
Market stalls sat half-shuttered. The air hung with heat and tension.
Her gaze swept the square below. Children kicked a deflated soccer ball.
Men stood on a corner, chatting while enthusiastically waving their hands.
A young couple strolled down the street, fingers locked, pointing and laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
A woman hung laundry with slow, practiced ease.
The scene was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that came right before the sky cracked open, allowing the stillness to sneak up and put a bullet in your temple.
Slowly, she blinked, once. Inhaled for a count of three.
Held it for two beats. Then released it with a quiet, but powerful exhale, expelling the negativity. There was no room for insecurity.
“Specs,” she said quietly. “Give me eyes.”
“Already patched in, boss.” The open line carried Specs’ serene lilt to Lark, through layers of static. “You’re in position one. You’ve got Moose covering the west wall, Sloan northeast. Thor is on the edge of the square, checking out the produce, a book under his arm.”
“Always amazed how he can look like a linebacker one minute, and a bookworm the next,” Jupiter said.
“A regular chameleon.” Lark swept the scope left. A fruit vendor waved lazily at passersby. A dog slept beneath a faded umbrella. It all looked… normal.
Her elevated position—tucked on a second-story balcony with rotted railings and a clay pot full of dead basil shielding her from view.
Wes and Alvarez were embedded in the lower streets.
At the same time, Specs remained in the makeshift HQ with Jupiter and Lief, keeping comms up and eyes on every available feed.
An SUV at the ready—if needed for quick evac.
"Buyer update?" Lark asked, voice low.
“No visual on Torin and Amir yet,” Jupiter said. “But we’ve got movement from Sentatrix’s contact for the sale of the product. Bretton said Hector, the seller, was on his way, and he wasn’t coming alone.”
“Did Bretton say how many men?” Lark wiggled her fingers to loosen the building tension and kept her breathing slow and controlled.
Bretton was supposed to have checked in a half hour ago, but that hadn’t happened, like so many other things.
Not the first shitstorm of a mission, but her heartburn reminded her that nothing about this one had felt right.
“His last transmission, he wasn’t sure. Said they kept changing who should be involved, and he’d do his best to keep us informed. ”
“We know there are at least four armed guards and not in plain sight,” Specs said. “We’ve got a visual on two. As far as the rest of it goes, we only know about the main contact, possibly the lead software engineer, and Bradford.”
“As in the fucking military liaison?” Lark mumbled the statement.
No one needed to comment. Everyone knew Bradford.
Ex-CIA. Ex-JSOC as part of the ISA or Intelligence Support Activity.
He’d left his post three years ago because he liked money more than he liked doing the right thing, even if that wasn’t his official reason for taking a job in the private sector.
Perhaps this explained everything, including why Grady got involved and sent in Kawan and his team.
“I’m in place,” Thor said. “I can see Hector, Bradford… and we’ve got a fucking problem.”
“What’s that?” Lark shifted, rubbing her hand up and down her leg, before snagging the monocular hanging on her belt. She adjusted the lens as she put it to her eye. Finding Thor was easy, but as she panned down the street to where it curved, she couldn’t see past the damn bend.
“Your man, Bretton, is with them,” Thor said.
“Fuck,” she mumbled. “This is turning into a real shitshow.”
“Not much we can do about it now,” Kawan said. “Torin is strolling in from the west side with Amir. Just walked over the bridge. Torin has a cocky swagger if I ever saw one.”
“He’s cocky, alright.” Lark sucked in a shallow breath and let it out slowly.
“Torin just gave the signal—three taps, right sleeve,” Thor said. “We’re a go.”
Lark tucked the monocular back into her belt, pressed her stomach flat against the rooftop, and adjusted her sniper rifle. She hated being blind. The bend… the bridge… When the location change came down, the seller knew they’d be tucked away where it would be difficult for anyone to watch.
Including their own people.
A crackle came over the comms. “Visual on the seller’s muscle. They’re heading toward the square, weapons not visible, but they’re not exactly blending,” Alverez said with a hint of unease.
“Standard arrogance,” Sloan muttered. “Bad guys love to peacock.”
“Keep an eye out for more, and don’t engage,” Lark said.
“We’re eyes only—unless something shifts.
” The plan was simple. Make the sale, and Torin walks away with the product.
Once outside the village, Torin meets up with his handler, and safeguards the AI.
A team from the DoD handles the rest at Senatrix Global.
“Boss, we’ve got a problem,” Specs said. “One of the seller’s men just peeled off and ducked into that alley.”
“Marking it now. Cam two,” Jupiter replied. “Trying to get a new angle, but we’re getting dead zones again.”
Lark stiffened. “Which zone?”
“The northeast corner near the chapel,” Jupiter said. “Where Mina’s located.”
“Got another one heading southwest, toward Lark’s post,” Jupiter said.
“I’m not liking this,” Kawan said. “Someone needs to keep an eye—”
“I’m fine. At least, for now,” Lark said. “We need to follow this plan as best we can. I need eyes on that fucking software, Torin, Bretton, and now Bradford.”
“Watch your back, Stratton,” Kawan said softly.
“We’ve got more men with guns out here,” Moose said. “Spotted two more taking off in the direction of Alverez.”
“Shit.” Her pulse kicked up. She clicked the comms again. “Alvarez, copy?”
Silence.
“Alvarez, this is Strattan. Come in.” She paused for a couple of seconds. “Mina. Come in, Mina.”
“I’m on the move,” Moose said.
“Wes, Wes, you copy?” Lark’s stomach clenched. “Specs, re-route cams. Now.”
“We’re trying, but we lost the relay again on quadrant four. Could be a glitch. Could be a jam. Could be something else.”
“I hate when you say things like that.” Lark scanned rooftops, windows, corners
“Working on pulling satellite override,” Jupiter said.
“Wes, you’re closest, can you confirm visual on Alvarez?” Lark asked.
Nothing but static…
“Moose, come in, Moose,” she said.
“Following one man,” Moose said. “Lost the other. He turned back toward the meeting location.”
“Break!Break!” Sloan cut in. “Movement on the rooftops. Multiple. With weapons.”
“Thor, you see what I’m seeing?” Kawan asked. “Because that looks more like a discussion than an exchange.”
“It sure does,” Thor said. “But I also can’t tell if that chat is friendly or turning into something else. However, Bradford’s backing away, shaking his head.”
Lark felt the shift in her gut—an old, familiar heat flooding her limbs. Her pulse increased. Her fingers twitched. “Get our assets out, and abort the mission,” she said. “Specs. Jupiter, can you be our eyes and get in the SUV and head in this direction?”
“Easier said than done,” Jupiter said with tension laced to every syllable.
Something that Lark wasn’t used to from that man.
“Half our feeds are now in a loop, like in that movie Speed, when the bus drives around in a circle at the airport. I used to love that fucking movie,” he mumbled.
“They hijacked the surveillance. Fuckers knew exactly what we were doing, and where we were doing it, but we’re packing up. We’ll make it work.”
“We need to remember they don’t know about us,” Kawan said with a little too much excitement. Sometimes she wondered if he had more of a death wish than she did. Not that she truly had one, but she did like jumping from perfectly good airplanes.
“Lark, both Bradford and Bretton are standing under the tunnel at the north end while Torin is back up toward the south,” Thor reported. “Something’s about to—”
A low pop echoed in her ear, followed by a wet gurgling sound.
“I’m hit,” Alverez’s voice barely crackled across the comms.
Lark held her breath waiting for anything other than static to fill her ear, but nothing came.
Then Jupiter’s voice, grim, “Movement just behind Alverz’s post. I can’t confirm identity.”
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The shots muffled. A silencer. But it cracked through the comms like a whip.
Lark’s body moved before her brain could catch up—shouldering her rifle, repositioning her scope, scanning windows, alleyways, bodies.
More shots.
“Fuck.” Thor tossed his book and hit the pavement.
Screams echoed in the market. People scattered. Chaos filled the streets as people shoved one another, ducking and weaving to get out of harm's way.
“Specs, initiate fallback protocol,” Lark said.
“We had Torin for a couple of seconds on one of the feeds before he disappeared,” Jupiter said. “No trace of him, Bradford, or Bretton anywhere since I got a couple of our cams back. ETA, ten minutes.”
Ka-boom!
Lark’s heart pounded. The earth rumbled under her body. Her eyes locked on the town square—and that’s when she saw it.
Large clouds of black smoke billowed from the chapel roof.
And a flash of movement—black tactical gear, not theirs.
“Mina,” she whispered.
“They’re clearing the board,” Kawan said.
And then, just before she could shout another order, a concussive blast shook the building beneath her.
Wood cracked.
Her balance tilted.
And the floor gave way.