Chapter 4 - Ambush in the Dark
The rain began just after twenty-one hundred hours, turning the tarmac of Fort Meade into black glass that mirrored the sodium security lights.
Ava stood in the second-floor tactical operations room of the CID annex, watching the wipers sweep across the windshield of her unmarked sedan parked below. She was checking the slide on her SIG Sauer P320 when Master Sergeant Brody stepped into the room.
Brody was forty-eight, thick-chested, with salt-and-pepper hair and eighteen years in CID field operations. He dropped a thermal mug of black coffee onto her desk.
"You stirred up a hornets' nest, Ava," Brody said, leaning against the doorframe. "Command just confirmed that Ryan’s father officially released a statement from the Pentagon. No intervention. He’s letting the military justice system take Ryan down to the studs."
"It's not Ryan I'm worried about anymore," Ava replied, holstering her weapon. "He was too cocky in the box. He practically bragged that a cleanup crew was active. Who was running the gate manifests on the south perimeter tonight?"
Brody frowned. "Captain Miller’s team was supposed to rotate in, but base logistics put in a last-minute swap. Staff Sergeant Torres and Lieutenant Higgins took the watch."
Ava’s head snapped toward him. "Higgins? He was Ryan’s shadow for eighteen months. Why the hell is he on perimeter control during an active lockdown?"
"Base operations routed the order under Colonel Vance’s digital signature," Brody said, his eyes narrowing as the implications settled in. "Wait. You think..."
"Vance didn't sign that," Ava said, grabbing her tactical jacket from the chair. "Someone inside the communications center spoofed the authorization. They’re moving the final shipment tonight. They know we have Ryan, and they know the net is closing. They’re dumping the evidence and running."
"Ava, wait for backup. We have a tactical squad standing by at the main gate."
"The main gate is three miles from the southern ammo depot! By the time they roll up, the trucks will be through the fence and onto the state highway. We move now."
Five minutes later, Ava’s unmarked sedan was cutting through the sheet-like rain, heading toward the abandoned sector of the base known as Depot Sector 7. Brody was riding shotgun, a modified M4 carbine resting across his knees.
The road was pitch black. The towering pines bordering the asphalt bent under the howling wind. As they rounded the bend approaching the warehouse row, Ava’s headlights caught something abnormal: the perimeter lights were completely dead.
"Blackout," Brody muttered, flicking off the safety of his rifle. "They cut the breakers."
Suddenly, high beams erupted from the tree line sixty yards ahead.
A heavy six-ton military transport truck roared to life, its diesel engine screaming as it surged forward onto the two-lane road, hurtling straight toward them like an unstoppable iron freight train.
"Brace!" Ava shouted, slamming her foot on the brakes and wrenching the steering wheel hard to the right.
The sedan spun across the wet asphalt. The massive steel bumper of the transport truck clipped the rear quarter panel with violent force, sending Ava’s car skidding off the road, rolling twice down a grassy embankment before crashing against a concrete culvert.
Darkness. The smell of burning rubber and deployed airbags.
Ava blinked against the dizziness, feeling warm blood trickling down the side of her forehead. Beside her, Brody was groaning, clutching a fractured collarbone, his carbine pinned under the collapsed dashboard.
"Brody... talk to me," Ava gasped, fighting her seatbelt release.
"I'm breathing... collarbone's smashed. Get out... Ava, they're coming down."
Footsteps crunched against the wet gravel above.
Ava drew her P320, kicked her buckled door open with both feet, and rolled out into the muddy ditch just as a burst of automatic gunfire tore through the roof of the sedan. Glass exploded in every direction.
"Check the car! Make sure they’re finished!" a voice shouted over the rain. It was Higgins.
Ava pressed her back against the concrete wall of the culvert. She counted the footsteps. Three men. Heavily armed, but moving sloppy because they assumed the crash had done the work for them.
*One... two... three.*
Ava took a deep breath, ignored the throbbing ache in her skull, and pivoted out from the culvert with surgical precision.
*Bang! Bang!*
Her first two rounds struck the lead contractor in the center of his chest rig, dropping him instantly into the mud. Higgins screamed, blindly spraying his rifle toward the culvert. Ava dropped to one knee, letting the rounds shred the brush above her, then returned fire with two measured double-taps.
The second gunman collapsed with a cry. Higgins dropped his weapon, clutching his thigh where Ava’s round had caught him, screaming in agony as he fell backward into the dirt.
Silence returned, punctuated only by the drumming rain and Higgins’s ragged sobs.
Ava walked up the embankment, her weapon trained squarely on Higgins's forehead. Mud streaked her face; her eyes were incandescent with fury.
"Higgins," Ava said, standing over him like an avenging ghost. "Where is the rest of the convoy going?"
Higgins stared up into the barrel of her gun, trembling so violently his teeth clattered. "Hangar Four... the south hangar... they’re loading the executive transport. Please... don't shoot..."
Ava kicked his fallen rifle into the darkness, stepped on his wounded leg just hard enough to elicit another shriek, and grabbed his radio from his vest.
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"Operations, this is Agent Mercer," she spoke calmly into the channel. "Officer down on Perimeter Road. Send medical for Brody. And scrambled tactical teams to Hangar Four immediately. The rats are trying to fly."
***
