Chapter 4 - THE SIEGE AT BLACKWOOD RIDGE
"Hand over the drive, Thomas, and we will take your boy into federal protective custody," Agent Mercer said, extending her gloved hand. "It's the only way he survives the night."
Thomas didn't lower his gun. His eyes flicked from Mercer to the two men behind her. "Protective custody? The last time someone trusted your division, a whole team of SEALs ended up ambushed in the Hindu Kush. I know how your department operates, Mercer. You'll use my son as bait to draw out Ares."
"Dad..." Leo whispered, opening the truck door slightly. "Dad, the note... Luke put something in my bag."
Mercer’s eyes narrowed instantly. "He has it."
Before Mercer’s men could draw their weapons, a high-pitched crack echoed from the dense tree line at the edge of the property.
The driver’s side mirror of Mercer’s black sedan exploded into plastic shrapnel. One of Mercer’s operatives collapsed instantly, clutching a suppressed bullet wound to his shoulder.
"SNIPER! DOWN!" Thomas roared, lunging across the hood of the truck, grabbing Leo by the collar of his hoodie, and dragging him violently toward the cover of the heavy oak porch steps.
Panic erupted. Mercer pulled a suppressed SIG Sauer from her holster, firing three blind shots toward the tree line as she scrambled behind the black sedan. The second operative returned fire with an automatic carbine, the loud thwack-thwack-thwack of bullets tearing through the siding of the Miller home, sending drywall dust and wood splinters flying into the air.
"Inside! Now!" Thomas yelled, kicking open the heavy oak front door and shoving Leo into the hallway.
They burst into the house. Thomas slammed the door shut, threw two heavy iron deadbolts into place, and pulled a heavy wooden barrier across the frame—a custom security feature he had built years ago.
"Dad! What is happening?!" Leo screamed, staying low on the floor, his hands covering his head as glass shattered in the living room windows.
"The mercenaries are here," Thomas said, his voice terrifyingly calm despite the chaos outside. He ran to the hallway closet, pulled a hidden lever behind the coat rack, and the entire back wall of the closet swung open, revealing a reinforced steel armory.
Inside hung tactical vests, comms gear, and military-grade rifles.
Leo stared in absolute shock. "Dad... you're a carpenter!"
"I used to build safehouses for Joint Special Operations Command before you were born, Leo," Thomas said, throwing a Kevlar vest over his son’s head and cinching the side straps tight. "I retired to keep you safe after your mother died. But it looks like the past just caught up with us."
Outside, heavy automatic gunfire began to rain down on the house from multiple angles. The sound was deafening—like hail slamming against a tin roof, but accompanied by the shattering of glass, the splintering of pine, and the smell of ozone and gunpowder.
Ares Defense Group had surrounded the perimeter. Six heavily armed mercenaries in gray tactical gear were moving through the treeline, suppressing the house while two breachers advanced up the front lawn with heavy tactical shields.
"They're cut off our comms!" Thomas shouted over the gunfire, checking the screen of a wall-mounted security monitor. "Cell jamming! We can't call local law enforcement!"
"Dad, look!" Leo pointed at the monitor showing the rear driveway.
A heavy armored SUV was breaching the back wooden fence, plowing through the timber like paper.
They were trapped.
"Leo," Thomas grabbed his son by the shoulders, forcing the boy to look him in the eyes. "Give me the note. Where is the drive?"
Leo reached into his pocket with trembling hands and pulled out the crumpled note. Thomas took a small tactical knife from his belt, carefully sliced open the seam of the paper, and extracted the silver micro-strip. He slotted it into a reinforced satellite uplink terminal on his desk.
The screen flashed red: ENCRYPTION DETECTED. TRANSMITTING TO NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE COMMAND... 12%... 24%...
"It needs three minutes to upload," Thomas said, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle. "We have to hold them off for three minutes!"
BOOM!
A breaching charge exploded at the back door. The heavy steel door buckled inward, smoke and fire billowing into the kitchen. Through the haze, two tactical operators in gas masks stepped into the house, their laser sights cutting through the dark smoke.
Thomas leaned around the corner of the hallway and fired three controlled bursts. The lead mercenary went down, his armor absorbing the impact as he scrambled back behind the doorframe.
"They're inside!" Thomas yelled. "Leo, get down to the cellar storm hatch! Go!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Leo cried out.
Before Thomas could answer, a flashbang grenade came bouncing down the hallway, sparkling with a fuse.
"COVER YOUR EYES!" Thomas roared, throwing his body over Leo just as the grenade detonated with a blinding flash and a thunderous shockwave that blew out the remaining windows and plunged the hallway into thick, suffocating smoke.
Leo’s ears rang with a deafening screech. His vision was swam with white spots. He felt his father’s heavy arm lying over him, motionless.
"Dad? Dad!" Leo choked out, pulling himself out from under his father. Thomas was conscious, but dazed, bleeding from a shrapnel cut on his forehead.
Through the clearing smoke at the end of the hall, a tall mercenary clad in full body armor stepped over the charred doorway. The red laser of his rifle drifted down the hallway, locking directly onto Leo’s chest.
The mercenary raised his weapon. "Drive's mine, kid."
Suddenly, the heavy glass skylight directly above the living room shattered into ten thousand pieces.
A shadow dropped from the roof—swift, silent, and terrifying.
A heavy tactical boot struck the mercenary in the side of the helmet with devastating force, sending him crashing through the drywall.
Standing in the center of the dust-filled room, framed by the moonlight pouring through the broken roof, was a man holding a suppressed carbine, his dark night-vision goggles flipped up, revealing piercing blue eyes.
Lieutenant Luke Harris.
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Behind him, dropping down ropes through the shattered skylight, came four more Navy SEALs, their weapons raised, clearing the room with terrifying precision.
"Did somebody order an escort?" Luke grinned through the dust, offering his left hand to help Leo off the floor. "Sorry we're late, Leo. Traffic on the highway was a nightmare."
