Chapter 48
The journey to the Arctic Circle was an exercise in calling in every blood-debt Cole had ever earned. Utilizing untraceable funds and deep-cover contacts, they secured passage on a heavily modified, radar-absorbent cargo plane capable of extreme-weather infiltration.
Inside the freezing, vibrating cabin, the atmosphere was a pressure cooker of lethal anticipation.
Donovan sat on a metal bench, meticulously checking the actions on a heavy squad automatic weapon. Despite her injuries from the ranch, she had absolutely refused to stay behind.
"The drop zone is treacherous, Boss," Donovan yelled over the roar of the engines. "We are jumping into a blizzard with seventy-mile-per-hour crosswinds. If we miss the primary ridge, we fall into a glacial crevasse."
"We won't miss," Cole replied, his face covered in dark tactical grease paint.
He looked across the cabin. Ava was sitting quietly, strapping a lightweight Kevlar vest over her thermal gear. She held a suppressed 9mm pistol in her lap, her hands remarkably steady.
Cole walked over, kneeling in front of her. "Ava, you don't have to do this. You can stay on the plane with Sarah and run overwatch."
"I am not sitting in a metal tube while my daughter is in that vault, Cole," Ava stated fiercely, meeting his eyes. "I am going."
Cole saw the unbroken, maternal wrath in her gaze. He recognized it. It was the same fire that had driven Ethan Vance.
"Stay behind my shadow," Cole commanded softly. "And do not hesitate to pull that trigger."
"I won't," Ava promised.
"One minute to the drop zone!" the pilot announced over the intercom. "HALO protocol initiated!"
The heavy rear loading ramp hissed open, instantly sucking the pressurized air out of the cabin and replacing it with the screaming, sub-zero fury of the Arctic night.
Cole didn't hesitate. He stepped to the edge of the ramp, staring down into the black, swirling abyss of the blizzard.
"Execute!" Cole roared.
He stepped off the ramp, plummeting into the freezing darkness. The free-fall was chaotic and violent, the wind battering his body like physical blows. He relied entirely on his wrist-mounted altimeter and the heads-up display in his goggles to navigate the blinding snow.
At one thousand feet, he pulled the rip-cord. The heavy tactical parachute deployed with a bone-jarring jolt.
He steered through the raging crosswinds, aiming for the faint, jagged silhouette of a mountain peak. He hit the snow-covered ridge hard, rolling to absorb the impact, his assault rifle instantly coming up to scan the perimeter.
Donovan and Ava landed seconds later, stumbling in the deep powder but recovering quickly.
"We made the ridge," Cole whispered into his comms. "Sarah, do you have eyes on the facility?"
"I'm patched into their external thermal sensors," Sarah’s voice crackled through the earpiece from the orbiting plane. "The primary entrance is fifty yards below your position. Heavy blast doors. Two automated sentry turrets guarding the approach."
"Donovan, disable the turrets. Ava, with me," Cole ordered.
They moved silently down the icy slope. Donovan set up her heavy weapon, utilizing specialized EMP rounds. She fired twice, disabling the automated turrets before they could acquire a lock.
Cole approached the heavy steel blast doors of the Omega Vault. He didn't try to hack them. He planted a concentrated, shaped thermite charge on the central locking mechanism.
"Breaching," Cole murmured, stepping back.
May you like
The explosion was muffled by the howling wind, but it blew the massive steel doors completely off their hinges, revealing a brightly lit, sterile concrete corridor descending deep into the ice.
The ghost of Task Force 9 had arrived at the edge of the world.
