I check my phone one last time for intel from my spotter inside.
Pakhan in the office with someone. Two guards. Chechen mercs.
Figures he’d be making early morning deals.
It’s four fifty-eight.
Two minutes until the guards rotate, giving us a windowof opportunity. I count silently as I pull my balaclava over my face, check my rifle and thumb the magazine. My hand dips automatically to the knife strapped inside my boot.
We continue through the empty streets, silent except for the sound of our boots on the asphalt. The compound rises ahead, concrete walls capped with iron spikes and security cameras, already dead. At my signal, Dimitri and his team head left along the southern entrance. Alexei’s team breaks off toward the north wall while my team go directly for the main gate.
"Give me a status," I whisper into my mic.
Dimitri and Alexei confirm their positions. They’re ready and waiting.
Through the iron bars of the gate, I make out two guards near the booth, rifles slung across their chest and cigarettes in hand. Both talking and laughing, thinking it’s just another early morning shift. One flicks his cigarette butt on the ground, stomping it with his boot.
Seconds tick by.
Right on schedule, the lights around the perimeter flicker. I signal to Petrov, one of Dimitri’s men now, under my team, to get ready. He powers forward, advancing on the frozen asphalt with Misha close behind, both armed with suppressed pistols. The guards keep talking, one texting on his phone smiling. By the time he looks up, it’s too late. His mouth opens in shock, the phone falling from his hand as two muffled shots split the air.
Both guards drop to the ground.
One staggers backward before collapsing, his head cracking against the concrete. The other slumps forward over the railing, blood spreading across his chest and dripping onto the frost.
Misha pushes the heavy gate. The iron groans then opens, offering no resistance with the power disconnected.
We're through.
Up ahead we cut across the courtyard, passing my father’s Bentley parked in the open. Shame. All that money and none of it’s going to help him today. My team advances, stopping at the sight of two more guards, blocking the main entrance. They’re both alert and waiting for trouble.
One of the guards spies movement, snapping up his rifle. He never stood a chance though. Misha fires three times, all shots suppressed until we’re inside. The guard twists sideways and crumples, dead before hitting the ground.
The second guard is faster. He gets his AK up, but Petrov fires off rounds, hitting him straight in the chest and neck, his rifle clattering on the stone. The sound echoes across the courtyard as we push forward.
For a stretch there’s nothing but silence, then out of nowhere all hell breaks loose. Gunfire erupts from the south side of the compound, where Dimitri’s team is positioned. These shots aren’t suppressed and they’re not coming from our side. The sound blasts through the morning silence. I hear Dimitri’s team firing off rounds in response before everything changes. There’s a different sound, heavier and deeper.
Fuck.
I hold up a hand to my men. They all better fucking stay quiet. We hear the sound ricocheting again. It’s a goddamn PKM. I don’t get time to think again when Dimitri’s voice comes through my earpiece, strained and urgent.
"They mounted a PKM. We're pinned!"
I shut my eyes for a millisecond. We all knew this was a possibility, given my father’s paranoia. I just couldn’t confirm it. Now it’s too late.
“Dimitri,” I hiss into the mic, “Give me a fucking status.”
The machine gun drowns him out. All I can hear are men screaming in the background.
"Dimitri!"
Still nothing but static and the fucking PKM keeps firing. Finally, Dimitri’s voice comes in again, so weak, I can barely hear him. "I'm hit. Can’t… I–I–"
More static.
"Dimitri! Answer me!”
A different voice comes on Dimitri’s mic this time. It’s younger and frantic. “Dimitri’s dead. We need—” Gunfire drowns him out.
