Chapter 31
The sound of shattering glass tore through the opulent auction room like a thunderclap. Billionaires in bespoke suits and cartel warlords adorned in gold froze, their champagne glasses slipping from their hands as the rain of jagged crystal rained down upon them.
Cole Bennett didn't simply land; he struck the polished marble floor with the catastrophic kinetic force of a missile. Before the terrified elite could even process the breach, the ghost of Task Force 9 was already moving.
"Contact!" roared the cartel leader, a heavily scarred man named Vargas, diving behind the reinforced podium where the three localized EMP devices sat in their protective casing.
The room was instantly flooded with heavily armed cartel mercenaries, their suppressed weapons snapping up to acquire the target. But Cole was a phantom operating in a localized time dilation born of absolute combat mastery.
He didn't fire wildly. He executed a flawless, choreographed dance of death. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. His suppressed MP7 barked, the armor-piercing rounds finding the unprotected gaps in the mercenaries' tactical vests. Four guards dropped before they could even pull their triggers.
"Sarah, I have visual on the packages," Cole shouted over the deafening roar of the unsuppressed return fire that began to shred the expensive artwork and leather furniture.
"I see them, Cole," Sarah’s voice crackled through his earpiece, her tone laced with frantic urgency. "But you have a problem. The casing holding the EMPs is wired to a localized dead-man switch on Vargas's biometric signature. If his heart stops, the devices detonate simultaneously. They won't just black out the city; the localized blast radius will level the entire penthouse."
Cole’s blood ran cold. He couldn't just execute the cartel leader. He needed him alive long enough to secure the weapons.
He dove behind a massive, solid marble pillar as a hail of bullets chewed away the stone inches from his face. The panicked buyers were scrambling for the exits, screaming as the crossfire consumed the room.
"You are a dead man!" Vargas screamed from behind the podium, clutching a heavy revolver. "You think you can steal from the Reyes Cartel? I will mount your head on my wall!"
Cole didn't waste breath on banter. He dropped his empty magazine, slamming a fresh one home with a sharp, metallic clack. He needed a non-lethal angle on a man surrounded by killers.
"Sarah, I need a distraction. Black out the penthouse," Cole commanded.
"I can't cut the main grid without triggering their backup generators, Cole. It will only give you two seconds of darkness," Sarah warned.
"Two seconds is a lifetime," Cole murmured, pulling a specialized, non-lethal flash-bang from his vest. "Do it on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark."
The penthouse plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
Cole didn't hesitate. He threw the flash-bang directly over the podium and sprinted across the open marble floor, relying entirely on his spatial memory.
The grenade detonated, a blinding, concussive burst of white light that disoriented the remaining mercenaries just as the backup generators kicked in, flooding the room with harsh, red emergency lighting.
Cole slid across the polished floor, coming up directly behind Vargas.
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Before the cartel leader could react, Cole drove his knee brutally into the man’s spine, dropping him to the floor. He didn't use a blade or a bullet. He clamped his massive hand over Vargas's throat, applying precise, agonizing pressure to the carotid artery, rendering the man unconscious without stopping his heart.
"Vargas is down. Heartbeat is stable," Cole reported, keeping his weapon trained on the remaining, stunned mercenaries. "The package is mine."
