We’re in four armored SUVs. They are tinted, reinforced, and armed to the teeth. The first carries the shipment—modified weapons, crates of ammunition, tactical gear, and silencers, fresh off a cargo ship registered under a shell corporation Matvey formed and buried in layers of secrecy.
My team is split between the vehicles, their weapons loaded and eyes sharp. Everything is going to plan. We’ve made this run before, and tonight should be no different. But somehow, something feels…off.
I’m in the second vehicle. Yuri rides shotgun, his jaw tight, eyes scanning the horizon through the thermal scope mounted to the dash. Two others sit in the back, silent but ready, rifles between their knees.
“Still nothing. Just a few lizards and the heat coming off the road,” Yuri mutters under his rough accent.
“That’s the problem,” I grit out. “There should besomething.” A trucker passing us in the night. A coyote wandering through thedunes. A drunk driver drifting over the line. Instead, we’ve got dead air. There’s not been a single satellite ping since we left the port.
The stillness is too perfect.
And the desert, when it gets like this, it’s not quiet. It’s waiting...
I speak into the comms. “Eyes sharp. This road stinks. Look alive.”
Static crackles back, followed by brief confirmations from the other vehicles. I reach down and rest my hand on my Glock. It’s not paranoia. It’s experience.
Ten minutes later, we round a slow bend flanked by cliffs and narrow ridges. It’s the kind of terrain that makes you feel like you’re in a chokehold.
Then it happens.
Boom! A flash—white-hot and blinding—erupts beneath the lead SUV.
The vehicle lifts on one side before slamming back down, flames licking from beneath its hood. Shrapnel slices through the night air. We swerve hard, tires screeching, metal groaning.
“Ambush!” I yell into the comms. “Go dark! NVGs on! Take cover!”
Instantly, the headlights all cut out. The desert plunges into a deeper darkness. And the only thing I can see is the glow of fire and flashes of gunfire.
I fling my door open and dive to the side, flipping my night vision goggles into place. The world shifts to green static. Shapes dart across the ridge—too many. There are flashes of automatic fire, aimed and precise.
Igor’s already firing, crouched behind the front wheel. I grab my AK-47 and crawl beside him.
“Seven, maybe more,” he says. “They’re trained.”
“Flank left,” I shout to the others. “We need to get them off the ridge!”
One of our rear vehicles peels out and creates a diversion. We take advantage of the shift and move quickly. One man cries out behind me, hit in the leg. I spin back, grab his vest, and drag him behind the SUV.
“Hold this!” I shove his hand onto the bleeding wound. “Don’t let go!”
The fire from above intensifies. A flare arcs into the sky and lights up the ridge with its red glow.
“They’re marking us,” Yuri mutters.
“For what?” Igor huffs.
“Maybe more incoming,” I grit out. We don’t have time to wait and find out. I rise just enough to get a clear shot and take down two attackers. One topples over the rocks, the other drops behind a boulder. Another tries to sprint across open ground and catches a three-round burst from our flank team. The rest hesitate—fucking cowards.
“We’ve got one moving. Backside, heading for the trucks!” someone calls.
“Take him down!”
A round of fire. The man collapses in a heap. And silence falls, brief and charged.
Then two SUVs, hidden until now, roar to life from behind a steep bank just beyond the ridge. The attackers pile in, their tires spinning in the dirt as they escape into the night.
“Status!” I yell.
