Chapter 12 - Blood and Deed
Ryan Miller didn't hear the relief in Captain Sullivan’s voice because there was none to hear. What he heard was the dull, metallic reality of an operational dragnet closing around his throat.
"You can't be here," Ryan stammered, pointing a shaking finger at Sullivan’s chest. "This is private property! This is a civilian civil dispute! The military has no jurisdiction on civilian soil! The Posse Comitatus Act—"
Sullivan didn't even blink. He took one step forward, closing the distance between them until Ryan was forced to look up into eyes that had seen the worst things humanity had to offer in three different hemispheres.
"Mr. Miller," Sullivan said, his tone conversational, almost polite. "If you say the words 'Posse Comitatus' to me again, I’m going to consider it an attempt to provide legal counsel without a license, and I find that intensely annoying. We aren't here as a civilian law enforcement agency. We are currently conducting an emergency perimeter defense drill around a registered Department of Defense asset. Colonel Emily Carter holds top-level operational clearance, and her primary domestic residence is an authorized secure point of record."
Sullivan looked over his shoulder toward the two Suburbans.
"Alvarez," he called out.
"Sir?" A lean, dark-haired operator stepped out from the second truck, a thermal imaging scanner resting in his hand.
"Sweep the ridge. Blackwood line, grid four through seven. We have confirmation of active optical surveillance within the last thirty minutes."
"On it, Captain." Alvarez turned and jogged toward the dense pine woods behind the shed, his boots making almost no sound on the needle-covered ground.
Sullivan turned back to Ryan. "Now, Mr. Miller. My orders are simple. I am to protect Mrs. Carter-Miller from all foreign and domestic threats. You, however, are not listed as an authorized occupant on this property's security manifest. In fact, Colonel Carter specifically categorized you as a hostile non-combatant."
"A hostile what?" Ryan gasped. "I’m her brother-in-law!"
"You're a man who threw a full Colonel’s gear into a mud puddle three hours ago," Sullivan said, a cold, humorless smile touching his lips. "In some parts of the world, that’s considered an act of war. In this county, it just makes you an idiot. Take your keys, take your leased Audi, and get down to the end of the access road before I decide that your presence constitutes an active security breach."
"I can't go out there!" Ryan screamed, his voice cracking into full-blown hysteria. "Brody’s people are out there! You don't understand! They aren't waiting for the morning! They have spotters on the ridge! They know you're here!"
"We know they’re here too," Sullivan replied calmly. "That’s why my men have four hundred rounds of armor-piercing ammunition and thermal scopes calibrated to body heat through white pine foliage. If Brody’s people step across that surveyor line, they won't be dealing with a county deputy who took a ten-thousand-dollar campaign donation. They’ll be dealing with the 3rd Special Forces Group."
Sullivan looked at Lauren. "Mrs. Miller, please go inside. Hayes is going to secure the windows and set up an interior relay. We have reason to believe that the lis pendens filed today was just the first phase of an asset seizure attempt."
Lauren didn't look at Ryan. She walked past him, her shoulder brushing his arm without a word, and walked into the house.
Behind her, the oak door clicked shut with the heavy, definitive sound of a vault locking.
Ryan stood alone on the porch, looking between Sullivan’s towering frame and the dark, looming wall of the forest on Blackwood Ridge. The sun was completely gone now. The sky had turned to a bruised, indigo purple, and the crickets in the grass suddenly stopped their singing all at once.
In the forest, five hundred yards up the ridge, a single green laser dot painted the bark of the oak tree right above Ryan’s head.
Sullivan saw it instantly.
With a speed that seemed impossible for a man of his size, Sullivan grabbed Ryan by the collar of his designer shirt, spun him around, and shoved him down behind the stone retaining wall of the porch.
*Crack.*
The sound was not loud—it was the whip-like snap of a high-velocity round passing through the upper leaves, followed a half-second later by the distant, muffled *thump* of a suppressed precision rifle from the high timber.
The slug struck the porch post where Lauren had been standing two minutes earlier, punching a clean, two-inch crater through the cedar and sending shards of wood raining down over Ryan’s trembling shoulders.
"Down!" Sullivan barked into his throat mic. "Contact rear! High ground, Blackwood Ridge! Hayes, kill the exterior floodlights! Alvarez, execute flanking maneuver Bravo! Now!"
The floodlights on the lake house instantly died, plunging the property into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
Ryan lay in the dirt beside the hydrangea bushes, his face pressed against the damp soil, sobbing uncontrollably. The illusion that had sustained him his entire adult life—that money, bluster, and clever paperwork could protect him from the violent realities of the world—had just been blown apart by a single piece of copper-jacketed lead.
Sullivan leaned over him, his night-vision goggles already down over his eyes, glowing with an eerie, phosphor-green aura.
May you like
"Still want to argue about jurisdiction, Miller?" Sullivan whispered, the muzzle of his rifle resting lightly against the stone wall. "Because right now, the only thing keeping your head attached to your spine is eleven years of your sister-in-law’s military service."
***
