Chapter 9
The flashbang detonated with a blinding, sun-white roar that tore through the freezing rain, instantly shattering the darkness of the dock.
The three masked mercenaries cried out, clutching their eyes as twelve million candlepower burned their retinas. The man in the overcoat stumbled backward, firing his weapon blindly into the gravel.
Jake didn't hesitate.
Dropping to his good knee, he raised his carbine. Three controlled double-taps rang out over the crash of the waves. The three guards dropped into the mud like lead weights before their weapons could level.
The man in the overcoat scrambled behind the wheel of the armored SUV, throwing the transmission into reverse. The tires spun violently in the gravel, spraying mud and salt as the vehicle lurched backward.
Jake sprinted across the open ground, ignoring the tearing agony in his ankle. He lunged over the mooring line, slid through the wet mud, and brought his weapon up, aiming through the shattered windshield of the SUV.
The vehicle didn't speed toward him. It spun around, tires screeching against the wet asphalt of the access road, and roared into the rainy night, its taillights vanishing into the fog.
Jake let the weapon drop to his chest, his breath coming in ragged, steaming gasps. He spun around and fell to his knees beside Ethan.
"Ethan!" Jake pulled his combat knife, slicing through the heavy zip-ties binding the man’s wrists and ankles. "Ethan, talk to me, buddy!"
Ethan groaned, rolling onto his back, his breath wheezing through broken ribs. He reached up with shaking, dirt-caked fingers, gripping Jake’s tactical vest with desperate strength.
"You... you fool," Ethan coughed, a terrible, rattling laugh shaking his chest. "I told you to run..."
"Shut up," Jake growled, his vision blurring with unexpected heat as he hauled Ethan’s shivering torso against his shoulder. "I buried an empty box for you four years ago. I’m not digging another hole tonight. Ava is waiting. Nora is waiting."
At the sound of his daughter’s name, Ethan’s grip tightened until his knuckles went white. "Nora... they didn't touch her? Tell me they didn't touch her!"
"She's safe. She's holding that damn rabbit you bought her," Jake said, hauling Ethan to his feet, supporting the injured man’s full weight against his own ruined shoulder. "We have the truck two miles out. We can be across the state line before dawn."
Ethan stumbled along beside him, his boots dragging through the crushed gravel. But after fifty yards, Ethan suddenly dug his heels into the dirt, stopping dead in the shadow of an old grain silo.
"Ethan, move!" Jake barked. "They have backup within five miles!"
"No, Jake," Ethan whispered, his voice suddenly dropping into a chilling, lucid register. "You don't understand."
Jake turned, staring into his friend’s bruised, hollow face. "Understand what?"
Ethan lifted his trembling left hand. Clutched in his palm was not an empty fist.
It was a small, black remote detonator with a glowing amber LED.
"The SUV wasn't trying to escape," Ethan whispered, tears cutting clean lines through the dirt on his cheeks. "The man in the coat... he wasn't running Aegis Vanguard, Jake. He was working for your handler in Virginia."
Jake froze, the rain soaking through his tactical shirt feeling like liquid nitrogen against his skin. "What are you talking about?"
"The leak in the Kunar Valley... it wasn't the contractor," Ethan choked out. "It was our commanding officer. He sold us out to protect his own offshore accounts. And Jake... the diner you sent Ava to? The Iron Kettle?"
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Ethan looked up, his one open eye filled with pure, unadulterated horror.
"The hit team didn't come to the docks," Ethan said. "They went to the diner twenty minutes ago."
