Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9) Read online

  He only had one shot at this.

  Greg took aim, being extra careful, and fired.

  The bullet caught Enzo in the bicep of his fake arm. Enzo stumbled slightly, caught himself and kept running. He leaped over to the next one and burst through a door at the top, rushing down the stairs. Greg and Eve walked to the edge of the building.

  “You got him?” she asked.

  “Got him. Now we just have to see where he goes,” Greg replied. Each of the bullets in his gun had been tagged with a tracer that would emit a signal for up to fifty miles. So, anywhere he went in the colony, they would know.

  The two began walking back to the safe house and updating Tanner on the situation.

  CHAPTER 09

  –Showdown–

  They all met back at the safe house.

  Greg hurried into the control room where Drake and Gen already were. “What happened?” Drake asked. He'd been leaning against a console but now he stood up straight.

  “We tagged him,” Greg replied.

  “Took us a bit to sort through the two you shot off into the air and the ones still on you,” Tanner said from his position across the room, manning one of the workstations. “But we narrowed it down. He's gone to ground.”

  “Where?” Gen asked.

  “Here.” Tanner turned away from the console and faced the large screen fixed to the wall. A still of a rain-slicked, broken-down warehouse, about twice the size of the one they were currently residing in, appeared. “It's an abandoned warehouse on the far side of the colony. This is where Enzo ended up running to. I haven't been able to get anything on it save that no one's been going near it for the past week or so, which means that we have a rough timeline for how long Rogue Ops has been in town. Which is disturbing, given that we had no idea when or how they arrived and we're supposed to know everything in this shithole.”

  “So what's the plan?” Greg asked.

  “We go in there and kick his ass,” Drake replied.

  Tanner winced. “It's a little more complicated than that. I managed to grab a thermal imaging of the warehouse and Forrester is working on pulling up schematics on the thing. There's close to thirty people inside and one of them is really glowing,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?” Eve asked.

  “I mean he's hot with tech. Some kind of jumped-up shit I've never seen before. His temperature is at least one ten.”

  “That's...impossible,” Greg said, frowning. “It'd fry his brain in half a minute.”

  Tanner shrugged. “Must be something inside making the adjustments. Whatever it is, it's gotta be powerful.”

  Greg glanced at Drake. “You don't think...”

  “The assassin we faced down at the abandoned plant,” Drake replied, nodding slowly. “That guy was something else.”

  “We didn't fare so well last time...” Greg murmured.

  “Sounds like we need the element of surprise,” Tanner said. “And...well,” he hesitated, frowned, looked around, “since you guys got pegged so fast, I figured there's a good chance we've been compromised. Which means two of us might as well come with you. Me and Bennings will, and Forrester will stay behind and run ops for us, be our eyes. We're going to have to move to another location when this is done, though,” he explained.

  “I kind of feel like a dick now,” Greg said.

  Tanner laughed. “Don't worry. This is a great change of pace from the normal shit we end up doing. Sitting around on our asses more often than not, honestly. And this place has gotten boring. We've been scoping another location for months and now we finally have an excuse to move out. Now, while we're gathering the intel, you all should be suiting up for war. This time, aside from the infiltration, we're going in guns blazing.”

  “My kind of party,” Drake said, heading out of the room, making for the armory.

  The others followed suit.

  * * * * *

  They drove through the rainy darkness in a pair of battered trucks.

  Tanner drove one truck, Bennings the other. Greg and Eve rode with Tanner, Drake and Gen with Bennings. They'd managed to get their hands on some basic blueprints for the warehouse, though there wasn't really a way to know if its internal design had changed at all over the years. Based on what they did see, however, they'd formed a plan. Gen would go in through the top of the building, alone, calling on her skills as an assassin. While she was breaking in through roof access, the others would split up into two teams.

  Greg and Eve would penetrate the facility via an underground sewage tunnel. Drake, Tanner and Bennings would take on a side entrance. They'd all start killing the guards as quickly and quietly as they could, with the ultimate goal being finding and incapacitating Enzo for capture. Back at the base, Forrester would be keeping an eye on the facility via a satellite in orbit they'd hacked, to make sure no on escaped.

  This was the plan.

  It felt relatively loose and cobbled together, but Greg supposed that that was for the best. The more intricate and complicated a plan was, in his experience, the bigger a chance there was of something fucking up. Being able to adapt, to make changes on the fly, seemed to be crucial to surviving these kinds of situations. He'd come across a quote at some point: Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Wasn't that all too true?

  They'd all geared up in armor and grabbed guns from the small but well-stocked armory the Spec Ops men had at the safe house. Now Greg felt home again, sitting in his black-and-silver armor, a pistol on his hip, rifle nestled between his knees, bullets and grenades in his various pockets. He glanced up as the truck slowed to a halt.

  “This is your stop,” Tanner said. “Good luck.”

  “Yep, you too,” Greg replied quickly as he opened the door and stepped out. He and Eve slammed their doors shut and hurried into the alleyway they'd been dropped off near, in between a pair of dilapidated warehouses. It had only gotten darker and rainier since they'd arrived. Greg figured it must be true nighttime by now.

  They checked the area for hostiles as they hurried down the alleyway, but they were alone in the dismal darkness. The warehouses on either side of them had registered as cold from the satellite imagery and this was a particularly empty part of town as it was. Greg reached the maintenance hatch embedded in the ground first, dropped to one knee and opened it up. He peered down, his faceplate providing a light-amp filter.

  Just a damp concrete tunnel below, through which the colony wired and wound all their utilities. He mounted the ladder leading down and began his descent.

  “Having fun yet?” he asked.

  “Lots,” Eve replied. There was no sarcasm in her voice, she was being serious. “This is what I had hoped for.”

  “Good. I'm glad. It's nice to have you here. I was...” he hesitated, hopped off the ladder and hit the filthy floor.

  “What?” Eve asked, doing the same.

  “I guess I was just thinking that the kind of relationship we had didn't seem...fair.” They set off into the darkness, working on a timeline, heading for the secret entrance to the warehouse.

  “Fair in what way?”

  “It was unfair in the way you'd always be back at the Atonement and I was out here, putting myself in danger, risking my life all the time, and you'd be there worrying about it. It wasn't fair to you. I like this set up more. We share the danger.”

  “That...makes sense,” Eve replied after a moment.

  “There's the door, up ahead,” Greg said, pointing. “We're nearly there.”

  * * * * *

  It was time to get into character.

  Something one of Genevieve old combat friends had liked to say just before a mission. Now, it was truer than ever. Genevieve hadn't had a chance to use her stealth and infiltration skills in any real capacity for some time, it seemed. Given the group she'd fallen in with, it always seemed like more or less a straight-up fight.

  For this op, Genevieve had opted out of the traditional armor and instead wore a formfitting jumpsuit she'd packed a
way. She'd always relied on stealth, speed and dexterity to get herself out of trouble, and power armor was out of the question for what she had in mind. Now, she was clambering quickly up the side of the warehouse, her special-grip gloves ignoring what would normally be a rain-slicked ladder. A pair goggles were fitted over her eyes, fastened to her head with a strap. She had a hood up over her head that fit snug against her skull, leaving only her face revealed. A silenced pistol rested on her thigh in a holster and several spare magazines of ammo and a few flash-bangs had been secured as well.

  She was ready for the night.

  And whatever it might bring.

  Genevieve came to a halt as she neared the top. She paused and poked her right index finger up over the edge of the roof, tapping into a tiny camera embedded in the glove she wore that linked to her goggles. The goggles went dark for a second, then a camera feed popped into existence, showing her the rooftop. She spotted three sentries, standing in the gloom, two of them smoking cigarettes, their faceplates up.

  They were definitely Rogue Ops troops, encased in jet black armor, holding rifles and looking miserable. She waited a minute, to see if any of them were patrolling, but they all seemed to be standing pretty still. Perfect. She deactivated the camera and in one, lithe movement, hauled herself up over the edge of the roof, tucked into a roll, came up on one knee, pistol aimed and fired three times. There was a slight pause, then all three men crashed to the rooftop. Silence fell once more, with only the whispering of the rain to break it.

  Genevieve disappeared through a vent grate.

  * * * * *

  “Gen is inside,” Drake reported.

  “Good, let's get this show on the road,” Tanner replied.

  They'd put down a guard standing outside of the secondary entrance without any real trouble, then hacked the door open and now they were inside. Greg and Eve had reported in a little bit before Gen, saying that they were just shy of getting inside the actual building. The plan was going well. So far as he could tell, no alarm had been raised, and the bad guys were down four personnel. Drake glanced back as Tanner finished closing the door.

  “Let's go cause some mayhem,” he said.

  Drake nodded. The trio set off down the rust-eaten corridor they'd come to. Up ahead, they could hear voices. More guards to put down. Things might get noisy, unless they managed to put the guards down before they could return fire. Drake eased to a stop as he approached the end of the corridor. It terminated in an open doorway embedded in the right wall. Drake raised his rifle and peered into the next room.

  Two guards, facing away from him, bullshitting about women they'd slept with recently. No one else in sight. Good. He stepped silently into the room, rifle raised, took aim and fired. Adjusting his aim a bit, he fired once more. Both men dropped without a word spoken, though their armor clanged loudly as they slammed to the floor. Drake hesitated, waiting to see if anyone would come investigate, but no one did. He motioned to the others and the trio made their way through the transitional room, pressing deeper into the warehouse.

  So far, so good.

  * * * * *

  “Man, this place is filthy,” Greg muttered as they made their way through the maintenance and sewage area that ran beneath the warehouse.

  “It is a sewer,” Eve replied.

  Greg grunted. Up ahead, he spied the ladder that would grant them full access to the warehouse. They still had yet to run into anyone. As they approached the ladder, he stepped out of the way to let Eve go first, since she was the genius here and there was a decent chance that Rogue Ops had set some kind of lockdown on it. He waited at the bottom as she clambered up and set to work on the control panel. After a moment, she reported that it was open. Greg activated his radio as he began making his own way up the ladder.

  “We're in, what's happening?”

  “Just taking down a few patrols, still haven't been detected yet,” Drake replied.

  “And Genevieve?”

  “I haven't heard from her...Genevieve, report.”

  Silence.

  “Gen? You there?” Greg asked.

  More silence.

  “Fuck,” Drake snapped. “Something's happened to her.”

  “Maybe she's just maintaining radio silence for some reason,” Greg replied, but he couldn't ignore the slow dread building in him.

  “Keep moving,” Drake said finally.

  Greg responded positively and hauled himself up out of the hole. Eve already stood at the top, standing guard. They'd come to a dark, empty room. Once Greg was clear, Eve opened the only door in the room and stepped out. She made a startled sound and he heard a pair of whispering gunshots, followed by two thuds. Greg hurried to join her in the corridor and saw that she'd taken out a pair of Rogue Ops men that had been walking towards them.

  “Nice shot,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but hesitated as they both heard a staccato clatter of machine gun fire erupt somewhere deeper in the warehouse.

  It seemed that the silent part of their mission was over.

  They hurried onwards.

  * * * * *

  Blood sprayed Drake's visor.

  He was already turning, aiming and firing as a confusing array of thoughts shot through his head, all of them blasted into non-existence as he honed his focus down to a single goal: survive. He dropped to one knee as he put a round through the faceplate of a Rogue Ops troop, then adjusted his aim and fired twice more, shattering another visor in a spray of blood and glass. Beside him, he heard someone shouting in pain.

  They'd made it down a few more corridors, drawing closer to the center of the warehouse, where they'd detected the overly hot signature, and had made it almost there when they'd walked into this apparent ambush. Drake mowed down another two men, and then, figuring their cover was blown anyway, tossed a pair of grenades through the door the soldiers were coming through. He turned and surveyed the situation.

  Bennings was down. Tanner was standing over him, at first covering him with his rifle, then, once noticing that the tide of enemies was momentarily stemmed, checking his gut wound. Grunting with frustration, he began to pull out his medical kit.

  Bennings grabbed his wrist. “Just...go,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Not leaving you,” Tanner replied firmly. More gunfire sounded from the way yet gone. Drake glanced through the door. It had to be Greg and Eve, or maybe Gen.

  “You got this?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Go. Finish it,” Tanner replied.

  Drake hurried out of the room, coming to a long corridor. At the end, he saw a pair of figures: had to be Greg and Eve. They were taking on a half-dozen troops. Drake shouldered his rifle, picked his targets and opened fire. He blasted through the rest of his magazine, putting down the troops that Greg and Eve didn't. As he slapped a fresh magazine into the rifle, silence fell and the trio waited for someone new to come out, but they remained alone in the corridor. Slowly, they began walking forward and met halfway.

  “Where's your team?” Greg asked as they looked at a partially open set of double doors that led into the primary room.

  “Bennings got hit, Tanner stayed with him,” Drake replied. “You heard from Gen yet?”

  “No, we haven't,” Eve said.

  “Shit. Come on, let's finish this.”

  They all turned fully towards the door now. Drake went first, pushing the door open further with the barrel of his gun. It creaked, the sound loud and ominous in the silence. He stepped in, sweeping the immense room beyond with his gaze, expecting one hell of a fight. But there were only three people in the room, standing near the middle of it. Enzo, and the man in white armor, their mysterious assassin, stood next to each other.

  On the floor next to them was Genevieve, unconscious.

  “Why are you here? I figured you'd all have better things to be doing,” Enzo said.

  “You know why we're here,” Drake growled, weapon raised and centered on him.

  “It wasn't my fa
ult,” Enzo replied. “It was just shitty luck. We both know that if he'd survived, you'd have been focusing on the bigger picture.”

  “That wasn't how it turned out,” Drake replied.

  “I don't want to kill you,” Enzo said quietly. “I was hoping...” for a moment, he looked softer, vulnerable. “I was hoping that we could do this without that happening.”

  “Are you insane!?” Greg snapped. “You knew that wasn't an option. And even all that aside, you have to know what they're trying to do! How could you possibly support this?”

  “All I know...is that they're my best bet to put an end to my suffering.”

  “I can put an end to your suffering,” Drake growled.

  Greg sensed the tension in the room ratchet up another notch. He prepared himself for battle. Things got started with a bang when, suddenly, Genevieve's leg snapped up and kicked the assassin's pistol out of his hand. Drake, Greg and Eve opened fire simultaneously. The assassin immediately turned to stomp on Gen, but she had already rolled out of the way, right into Enzo's legs, who was knocked over and narrowly avoided taking a faceful of lead. Drake managed to hit the assassin twice, once in the shoulder and once in the chest.

  Greg drew a bead on Enzo, who was regaining his feet. As he began to squeeze the trigger, the assassin in white suddenly produced and threw a throwing knife, knocking the rifle free of his hands and sending him stumbling backwards. Gen scrambled to her feet and threw herself at the assassin, grabbing his helmet and yanking him to the floor. He punched her once, hard, in the neck and sent her stumbling backwards, coughing violently.

  Eve opened fire on Enzo, managing only to hit his artificial arm. He stumbled backwards, then raised his pistol and fired. Greg heard a cry of pain that ripped through him as he scrambled for his rifle, somewhere behind him.

  Eve.

  He spun around, abandoning the effort to get his rifle and saw Eve in mid-fall, her head snapped back, a spray of blood escaping her helmet.