Chapter 7 - The Trap Springs
“Rach, listen to me very carefully,” I whispered into my collar mic, keeping my eyes locked on Vance and Cole standing twenty yards away in the muddy mill yard. “Are you secure in the inner room?”
“I locked the steel security door and bolted the inner vault,” Rachel’s voice came back through the earpiece, tight with adrenaline but controlled. “I see them on the security cameras, Ethan. Two men in tactical vests. They’re crowbarring the side window of the office.”
My mind raced through tactical permutations in milliseconds. If I broke cover now to take out Vance and Cole, I’d be twenty minutes away from my house by the time I navigated the logging trails. But if I left them here, they’d continue their operation unchecked.
The choice was made the second I heard the sound of glass shattering through the audio feed from my home.
Family came first. Always.
But I wasn't going to leave these two bastards a clean escape route, either.
I reached into my tactical vest, pulled out a small, military-grade smoke grenade, and primed the pin. With a flick of my wrist, I lobbed it high over the rotting timber stacks toward the center of the loading yard.
Clatter.
The grenade landed squarely between Cole and Vance with a sharp metallic bounce.
“What the hell is that?” Cole yelled, jumping back as a dense, blinding cloud of thick, white chemical smoke erupted instantly, filling the courtyard with an impenetrable fog.
“Get down!” Vance shouted, drawing a suppressed automatic pistol from his shoulder holster and sweeping the darkness blindly.
I didn't wait to watch them choke on the smoke. I turned and broke into a dead sprint back toward the tree line, my boots eating up the rugged mountain trail with the speed of a man possessed.
My lungs burned as I pounded through the dark timber, my mind locked entirely on the security monitor feed streaming silently into my earpiece.
Back at the shop, the audio feed crackled with the harsh sound of splintering wood and heavy boots hitting the concrete floor of the main office.
“Clear the perimeter!” a gruff voice barked through the home audio monitor. “The boss said make it look like a break-in gone wrong. Torch the files and get out.”
“I hear someone in the vault room!” the second operative shouted, kicking heavily against the reinforced steel door protecting the inner office where Rachel sat.
“Hold on, Rach,” I muttered under my breath, leaping over a fallen log and sliding down a steep embankment toward where my Bronco was hidden in the firs. “Just hold on two more minutes.”
I reached the Bronco, threw open the door, and fired the engine. The old V8 roared to life, shaking the damp night air. I slammed it into four-wheel drive, popped the clutch, and shot down the logging access road with the headlights off, navigating purely by night-vision optics and raw memory of the terrain.
Ten miles to go.
Through the earpiece, I heard the dull, metallic boom of a breaching charge echoing from my workshop.
May you like
“Ethan!” Rachel’s voice screamed through the receiver, followed by the deafening shriek of smoke alarms blaring inside the house. “They blew the outer door! They’re trying to burn the place down!”
“Let them try,” I growled, shifting hard into third gear as the Bronco drifted around a hairpin turn on the mountain pass. “I’m almost home.”
