Chapter 5 - The File That Doesn't Exist
"We have two minutes before they secure the perimeter," Cross said, his voice entirely devoid of panic, snapping into the crisp, ruthless efficiency of a Tier-One operator under contact.
He reached into the Pelican case, pulled out the M4 carbine, slammed a magazine home with a sharp clack, and racked the charging handle. He handed me a secondary weapon from the foam cutout—a customized Sig Sauer P320 with a threaded barrel and an extended 21-round magazine.
"Can you shoot?" he asked.
"I qualified expert on the M9 and the M4 every six months for eight years, Cross," I said, checking the chamber with a single pull of the slide. "The paralysis is in my T-10 vertebra. My trigger finger works just fine."
"Good," he said. "Because Keller wasn't the lead dog on this. Burke sent his primary strike element. These aren't private security guards; they're ex-Unit and former DEVGRU guys working on six-figure corporate retainers. They don't take prisoners, and they don't negotiate."
"We need the drive," I said, looking down at Rex.
"There's no time for surgery, Olivia!"
"There's thirty seconds," I snapped, my eyes locking onto his with the absolute authority of a trauma lead. "If we get hit and that dog takes a round, that drive is lost in the brush. I'm taking it out now. Cover the eastern door."
Cross looked at me, saw the immovable granite in my expression, and nodded once. "Thirty seconds, Doc. Then we move."
He turned toward the bay-side loading doors, dropping into a low, braced firing position behind a stack of rusted steel drums.
I didn't bother with the local anesthetic. There was no time for the lidocaine to take effect. I looked into Rex’s eyes.
"Rex," I whispered, pressing my forehead against his wet snout. "Halte fest. Be brave, boy."
The dog let out a tiny, high-pitched whimper, then closed his eyes, pressing his jaw hard against my knee.
With a steady, ruthless stroke of the scalpel, I made a half-inch incision directly over the scar tissue. Blood welled up—bright, crimson, hot against my fingers. Rex flinched, his claws scraping the concrete, but he did not growl, and he did not pull away. He took the pain like a soldier taking a wound in the trench.
I slipped the curved hemostat into the incision, feeling through the subcutaneous fat. Clink. The metal tips brushed against the hard ceramic shell of the capsule.
I locked the clamps, twisted gently, and extracted the tiny, glass-and-titanium cylinder from his shoulder.
"Got it," I breathed.
I grabbed a piece of sterile gauze, jammed it into the wound, and slapped a pre-cut strip of heavy medical tape across his fur to hold the pressure. "Rex, auf!"
Rex scrambled to his feet, shaking off the blood, his ears pinned back, ready for the fight.
Outside, the first flashbang detonated against the corrugated metal siding of the warehouse with a deafening BOOM-CRACK, sending a shower of rust and dust cascading from the rafters. The plexiglass windows blew inward in a shower of glittering shards.
"Breach!" Cross roared.
The heavy wooden double doors at the far end of the warehouse splintered into kindling under the impact of a tactical battering ram. Two figures in black ballistic plate, night-vision goggles glowing green over their helmets, poured through the smoke, their carbine muzzles sweeping the floor.
Cross didn't hesitate. His suppressed rifle barked three times—chut-chut-chut—the subsonic rounds striking the first operator square in the high chest, punching through the ceramic plates and driving him backward into the rain.
The second operator dove behind a stack of wooden pallets, returning fire with automatic bursts that chewed through the cedar siding, sending long, jagged splinters whistling through the air.
I wheeled my chair behind the cast-iron base of an old drill press, the Sig Sauer raised in both hands. Through the smoke, a third shadow moved along the northern catwalk, trying to flank Cross from above.
I tracked the movement. I didn't have legs to brace against the floor, so I locked my elbows, used my core to steady my upper frame against the iron column, and squeezed the trigger twice.
Crack. Crack.
The figure on the catwalk stiffened, dropped his rifle, and tumbled over the safety railing, hitting the concrete floor thirty feet below with a sickening crash.
"Doc’s got eyes!" Cross shouted over the din of gunfire. "Move to the back ramp! We take the boat!"
"What boat?" I yelled back, firing a suppressing round toward the splintered doorway as another mercenary attempted to advance.
"My uncle didn't just leave a shed!" Cross fired another controlled pair, pinning the remaining shooter behind the pallets. "He left a twin-engine Boston Whaler on the tidal lift! Hit the green switch by the rear breaker!"
I spun the push-rims of my chair, the rubber slick with dust, propelling myself toward the rear of the warehouse. Rex ran beside me, his body pressed tight against my left wheel, acting as a living shield against the incoming fire.
Rounds whipped through the air—snap-snap-snap—chewing through the drywall inches above my head. I reached the green switch, slammed my palm against it, and with a grinding groan of heavy chains, the rusted iron roll-up door facing the ocean began to rise.
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Outside, bobbing in the dark, tidal surge beneath the dock, was an unmarked, olive-drab tactical boat, its twin outboards covered in canvas.
And standing on the dock right beside it, holding a silenced pistol pointed directly at my chest, was Colonel Jonathan Burke.
