Chapter Twenty-Four

T he day before, his teammates and Anderson had told him constantly how dangerous and ill-conceived his plan was, but it was the only one that had presented itself. He had his own doubts about how well it would work or the unseen variables they might encounter. There were many risks, mostly for him, but Banks had made it quite clear that Savage was the target of his vendetta when he accessed his file and threatened his family specifically.

The logic behind it was indisputable. They wanted to eliminate the man who worked as an enforcer for Anderson and Monroe’s team. Given the history, they obviously realized they wouldn’t effectively be able to remove either of them while they had him to throw wrench after wrench into their works, and they targeted him directly.

Which meant he was the one who had to pull this off in order for it to work. He needed to get into that bunker himself and make sure people were distracted long enough in their attempt to either entrap or kill him to allow the rest of the plan to unfold effectively.

Most of the day had been spent running surveillance from a distance. Savage, Sam, Terry, and Anderson alternated who was in their hide on the crane that was still unused. Work continued along the docks during the weekend, but it took place on the far side and so left their location all but abandoned, for the most part. The lack of traffic and activity was probably why their adversaries had chosen this bunker to build their secure location in. If he were someone rich who wanted a safe hideaway that would enable them to keep potential attackers at bay, he would have wanted somewhere that wasn’t used until the peak seasons.

The light had begun to fade and his phone vibrated in his pocket to notify him that it was almost time. He moved his car closer to the target in a slow crawl and inched toward the fences before he finally stopped about half a klick from the bunker.

It was all too easy to slip into an overthinking mindset—the kind that made him wonder about the hundreds of different ways in which all this could go wrong. He was acutely aware of the possibilities if not the probabilities. His death was one of the worst ways in which it could go wrong. He would essentially go in there blind, with maps created from the bunker plans that were at least a decade old as his only reference for orientation once he entered.

A half-hour remained before he could move toward the bunker itself on foot. The operative took the time to enter the dark, cold place within, the place where the plan was irrevocably settled and cast in stone. Questions would only come along when he was in a position where he had to deal with them in the moment and only had a split second to make choices. It didn’t guarantee that he would make the best decision, of course, but it certainly meant he wouldn’t have too much time to overthink the problem and probably revert to his original decision anyway.

“Savage, are you good to go?” Anderson asked from his position on the crane where he functioned as a spotter for Terry. “Fifteen minutes and counting. Run a quick weapons check.”

It had been a while since the former colonel had conducted a field operation, but he still knew how to do it. He assumed Savage would be in his car, stewing over his own possible demise. At this point, it was too late to call the operation off, which meant they were all in this together. Part of his role was to be there to help and give the man on the ground something to do with his hands to keep his mind off of the bad shit that very likely lay ahead.

Savage actually did run a quick check on the weapons he’d brought with him. His Glock was fitted with a suppressor Terry had somehow acquired, although he hadn’t explained the details. The shotgun was essential too—close quarters, up close and personal, was what he aimed for and anticipated. From the plans he’d seen of the bunker, there was little in the way of open spaces. In other words, the fortress was the kind of place where he wanted to have as much lead spewing downrange as possible.

“Locked and loaded, boss,” he said. He wore a vest of body armor but would have felt more comfortable with one of the full helmets they issued as standard gear to the Marines these days. They’d provided him with a ski-mask laced with some light shit they’d pulled out of the Zoo that apparently worked almost like body armor. Still, the fact remained that if he took a headshot, the bullet might not punch through but it would be a kill shot, nine times out of ten. Of course, it was better than going in there with nothing.

He was dressed in dark camo to help him remain unseen as much as possible. Anja and Anderson had explained that the light tech in it allowed him to be more difficult to see in weak light or dim situations. There had been far too much science involved for him to really assimilate, and all he had really come away with had been the fact that Pegasus actually developed these kinds of things. What government would want some kind of active camo?

Savage didn’t really want to know the answer to that.

“You’re good to go in three…two…one,” Anderson said, already patched into the earbud comm system Anja had set up for them.

A second after one, the operative stepped out of his vehicle and didn’t bother to shut it behind him before he moved on. The faint sound of cars approaching on the road created a steady background hum. He stayed low and remained close to the mostly abandoned warehouses around his target. Headlights lit the area well enough, but any noises he might have made were covered by the two engines of the security vehicles and wheels on tarmac. He had sufficient time to continue his advance as the group of men seemed in no particular hurry once they’d arrived. They stood around and exchanged pleasantries that he could hear from the position he’d managed to reach at the fence.

As a group, they stepped into the elevator and the door closed. He hefted his pistol in readiness and hugged the ground.

The elevator doors opened a few minutes later to reveal the men who protected whoever was in there and who had been relieved by the newcomers to head back to their homes. Hopefully, the whoever was Banks.

The five men who stood guard outside waved the group goodbye and watched as the SUVs left the area at a slow, steady speed.

“Are you good to go, Savage?” Anderson asked, momentarily forgetting that he couldn’t actually say anything without giving his position away. “Oh…right. Ready to go, Terry?”

“Call them,” Terry said in the soft voice snipers used when they were in their quiet, dark place. It wasn’t the same kind of dark place Savage went to—or, at least, he didn’t think so—but it was similar enough that he could understand it. You needed somewhere like that when you knew you were about to kill people.

“Five targets,” the former colonel said. “About seven hundred yards out. Fire when ready.”

An almost frozen silence hung over the area a few seconds before it was shattered by a distinct crack. By the time the operative heard it, the man closest to him was already dead, his brains splattered across the gravel around him. A headshot from seven hundred yards out was an excellent shot. A second crack followed and another body thudded to the ground. Savage withdrew a pair of bolt cutters from his pocket and went to work on the fence to create an opening large enough to allow him in.

Two more cracks preceded loud footsteps that alerted him as he stepped through the hole he’d made. He immediately drew his Glock and held it at the ready. The man who had been on the other side of the elevator tried to circle while he called for backup. There was no answer on his comm device—at least that Savage could hear—but it was still best to not permit him to enlist further help on the surface. He raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger a couple of times. Both shots struck their target, but the man appeared to be wearing some kind of body armor. He grunted in pain and stumbled out of the limited cover provided by the entrance to the bunker. There would be no prizes for guessing what would come next.

Another sharp report followed a dull thump as the bullet pounded through the man’s skull. The operative had already moved on toward the elevator.

“Do I have any company coming up?” he asked while he made a hasty assessment of the area.

“There’s no sign of any movement on the elevators,” Anja replied. “Wouldn’t they want to confront you up here to ensure as much distance as possible between any attackers and the person they’re protecting?”

“I doubt it,” he responded caustically and peered more closely at the elevator doors. “If the communication reached the people down there they know someone will eliminate them from long range. They’ll probably stay down there and try to bring in reinforcements to deal with the sniper. It’s the standard protocol for anything like that. Although in the field, they would simply call in a mortar strike on the general location and hope to flush him out that way.”

“I don’t think that’ll work in the middle of New York fucking City,” the hacker replied. Terry would no doubt be relieved to hear that. “But either way, I’ve blocked comms in and out of the place. It won’t matter if they have a landline, but either way, I think I bought you five minutes. Do you feel like using it?”

Savage positioned a device that had taken most of the day to acquire but which was fairly important to the success of the operation. The doors were supposed to be magnetically sealed in case of an attack, but they functioned on electromagnets. He had listened as closely as he could when she explained it to him, but all he really understood was that it was some kind of focused EMP that worked to disengage doors exactly like these. It locked magnetically to the elevator door, and he pressed a button on the center of the disk and took a step back.

A soft snap and crack indicated success and the device fell with a dull thunk. He narrowed his eyes.

“Is that it?” he asked and retrieved a small, compact crowbar from his pack.

“What did you expect?” she asked, but he was already focused on the next step. Sure enough, the doors pulled apart easily and the magnets kept them disengaged. The shaft opened and he pulled climbing gear from his pack. He leaned inside to find the steel wires and attached the rope grabs to them, clipped them to the harness he put on over his suit, and dragged the ski-mask down over his face. Cameras on the outside would have already identified him as the invader. There was no need to keep them in the loop any longer.

“Good luck, Savage,” Anja said as he began his descent of the shaft. The grabbers worked automatically and lowered him faster than he was comfortable with, but when he turned his flashlight on, he realized it was actually a fairly decent speed. In less than a minute, he reached where the elevator had stopped.

He’d examined the plans over and over again and now confidently applied the bolt cutters to the lock that kept the hatch at the top of the elevator closed.

His heart hammered loudly in his chest as he retrieved a flashbang from his pack and cradled it in his palm for a moment. He kept both weapons within easy reach as he pulled the hatch open briefly to confirm that the elevator’s door was open. After a long, deep breath and a slow exhale, he primed the flashbang, pulled the pin, and opened the flap to lob it through and toward the open door. Quickly, he shut the hatch again.

A loud bang shuddered through the sturdy insulation of the elevator as Savage yanked the hatch open one last time and pushed through. He landed on his feet, dropped smoothly into a roll that carried him clear of the box, and found his feet, his shotgun in hand.

“I’m in, Savage,” Anja said softly, but his focus was elsewhere, and he didn’t respond. The roll had felt smooth, but it still shocked his whole body into a sluggish response he had to work through in these critical moments. He swung the shotgun barrel toward two guards who stood nearby and stared at the doors. Fortunately, the flashbang appeared to have incapacitated them somewhat, which bought him precious seconds. The weapon kicked back into his hands and buckshot powered through the body parts that weren’t protected by armor. The first man fell with most of his throat missing.

The operative pivoted in place and identified a second target before he jerked the pump action in the weapon and squeezed the trigger again. This man was close enough that he was able to aim all the pellets toward his mostly exposed head, which rapidly became a smoking red mess.

The effects of the flashbang wouldn’t last much longer, he reminded himself and darted behind what looked like a refrigerator when a concerted volley drove him into cover. The slugs battered his temporary shield, but it seemed to hold up. There should be about eight of them now, plus Banks if he was there.

“Savage, get out of there now,” the hacker shouted into his comms, but he couldn’t comply. Well, he could have, but almost any movement would bring him under fire from the eight defenders who positioned themselves for maximum engagement.

One of the men circled and tried to get a shot in but Savage fired his shotgun at him. It wasn’t a clean hit, but he pumped the action quickly and fired again. A third shot shredded the tables nearby and the man finally fell. Blood seeped onto the floor beneath him. The operative let the weapon fall and drew his Glock clear of its holster to open fire as the remaining guards launched into a concentrated attack.

A defender collapsed when a bullet hammered into his body armor and Savage fell back with a curse. A round had winged him in the arm but the wound, thankfully, wasn’t serious although it left him disoriented.

Now out of his cover, he tried to find something to stabilize his balance, but one of the men barreled forward and tackled him before he could initiate a defense.

Why did they not shoot to kill?

He landed hard and the breath expelled painfully from his lungs. His adversary pushed to his feet and seemed to forget for a moment that he still had a gun in his hands. He pointed it vaguely in the man’s direction and pulled the trigger—once, twice, and three times until his target sagged over him and a red splash erupted out the back of his head.

Before he had managed to shove his victim off him completely, a hard kick to his wrist careened the weapon out of his hands.

“Savage!” Anja yelled, but when he tried to answer, another boot pounded into his gut and he curled into a fetal position.

Ah, that was why they didn’t try to kill him. They wanted to beat the shit out of him first. The thought provided little comfort as punches and kicks battered him relentlessly from all sides. He tried to fight back and managed a couple of blows of his own, but they made little impact. All he really could do was smile as he watched the elevator doors close as if of their own accord.