A sudden malfunction of the building’s environmental system Katie had oh so helpfully broken by hacking the server resulted in a frantic, intercepted call for repairs by the building’s management.The ruse enabled them to go in undercover as electricians so as to better hide their gear in bulky tool cases.Katie had control of the security system and would wipe every trace of them from the system’s hard drives and servers once they cleared out.
While Alexei supported Kyle in the elimination of the target, Madison’s job was to deal with the security guards that periodically made the rounds.They’d chosen her to do all the talking since she was originally from Los Angeles, and her voice wasn’t as distinctive as Kyle’s or Alexei’s.She knew the local slang better than they did and was less intimidating on first glance, though Kyle would never be one to underestimate her.
Kyle had grown up in Boston, the son of a violent Irish Mob enforcer, before a retaliatory gang attack orphaned him at the age of thirteen.Alexei’s family had fled a refugee city in Ukraine on a generational refugee asylum request and had finally been relocated to Boston three years prior to that fateful night.They’d grown up as friends, and the Dvorkins had taken Kyle in and adopted him.Everything about their ethnically Russian way of life had stuck with him long before he and Alexei joined the Army on a Special Forces contract.
“Should have taco truck here when we leave,” Alexei grumbled.“Buy on way out.”
“Y’all better bring me some grub if you do, or y’all are walkin’ home,” Annabelle said over the comms.“All twenty-five hundred plus miles.”
“Copy that, Icarus,” Madison said with a laugh as she came back into the office.
Kyle gave her a thumbs up before fitting his eye against the scope again, staring through its high magnification.He couldn’t get a read on wind speed since they weren’t outdoors, but Alexei was feeding him weather updates every few minutes from the sensor they’d placed outside on the window and would give him a steady stream of information once the target showed up.
If the target showed up.
TheFederaciónCartel was one group of a loosely bound global alliance of criminal enterprises the MDF had discovered was attempting to create metahumans for their own use through torturous human experiments performed across multiple countries.The breakthrough came last summer, and since then, the MDF and their affiliates in other countries were playing catch-up when they couldn’t afford to if they wanted to keep the public safe.
The only thing that could turn a human into a metahuman was Splice, a toxic chemical created by terrorists for use in war over a hundred years ago.The nonpersistent, highly volatile chemical began as a liquid before vaporizing quickly.Whether absorbed through the skin or inhaled, the cytotoxicity of Splice was deadly to humans.It killed within hours through rapid catastrophic cellular collapse and had a ninety-five percent kill rate.The remaining five percent of survivors were inherently immune to Splice, their bodies jumpstarting long-dormant junk DNA and changing them into metahumans.
No one knew which junk DNA was the catalyst for the change since each segment of junk DNA was different in every metahuman tested.Neither did scientists know what environmental factors, if any, needed to come into play.A viable vaccine had yet to be discovered, despite many companies trying to find a so-called cure over the years.Considering governments had a monopoly on metahumans, it wasn’t a surprise criminals and terrorists were attempting to make and field their own.War was big business and always would be.
“Got movement,” Alexei said suddenly.“Three SUVs, arrive southbound.”
Kyle adjusted the angle of his scope until he had the trio of vehicles in view once they cleared a building.“I see them.”
Kyle tuned everything else out except the steady drone of Alexei’s voice as he focused on the scene through his scope.The SUVs pulled through the security gate that surrounded the tall warehouses.He followed their route to the warehouse MDF analysts had tagged as the likely building the buy would go down in.The scope Kyle was using automatically took photos every minute and transmitted them back to base; he upped the interval to every five seconds by pressing a button on the side of the scope.
“Second group come westbound,” Alexei said.
“Copy that,” Kyle replied.
The SUVs rolled to a halt, and people got out.Kyle focused on the man exiting the middle SUV from the rear passenger seat, pegging him as the one in charge based on his suit alone.Miguel Estrada was not part of the drug kingpin’s family who operated theFederaciónCartel.His Estrada Organization was merely one arm of it, overseeing the transportation of weapons over the Southern California border and down the desert roads that stretched between San Diego and the Los Angeles megacity.His role as a ruthless weapons trafficker had thrust him to a level of wealth and status that should have meant these sort of deals were left to an underling.Except he was here, which meant their intel was right, and whoever the buyer was, they had to be important.
“Target in sight,” Kyle said.“Do I have the green light?”
“Affirmative, Reaper.You have the green light,” Katie replied crisply.
The second group of SUVs pulled through the security gates and parked several meters away from the first group.Kyle kept eyes on Estrada, grimacing at how the man’s bodyguards kept blocking the shot as they moved with him to greet the new arrivals.Kyle shifted position a bare millimeter to get a better angle, never blinking.Shooting from a higher vantage point meant he could only see so much of a person’s face, and getting a decent photograph for facial recognition purposes was practically impossible.
He didn’t turn off the photo function of the scope, hoping to get enough that someone could render a composite of a face.Those few he could make out from the new group had the distinctive facial features of people hailing from Eastern Europe or Russia.Considering the first mission Kyle had ever run with Alpha Team resulted in them being teleported to a now-destroyed base in Ukraine, formerly run by Russian operatives with a few French terrorists thrown in, that detail wasn’t surprising.Who they were escorting was difficult to make out through the screen of bodies, but he could tell it was a woman by her slighter build.He managed to get the curve of a cheek and jawline, half obscured by blonde hair, before someone blocked his view.
The bodyguards around Estrada shifted a little, a bit of space opening up.Kyle stared through the scope and fell into that deep focus found only between one heartbeat and the next, the air slowing in his lungs as his finger rested against the trigger.It took three pounds of pressure to kill a man, and Kyle rarely missed.
Two kilometers away, Miguel Estrada lifted his head, stared directly into Kyle’s eyes with a mocking smile, and mimed cutting his throat before pointing in his direction.
“What the—?”Kyle jerked backward.“Move!”
He threw himself away from his rifle and the desk, even as Alexei sprinted away from the window without questioning his order.Madison dove through the doorway and out of his line of sight.Kyle put himself behind Alexei as they raced out of the office.He had just barely cleared the doorway when an explosion ripped through the space they’d just vacated.The leading edge of the concussive force of the bomb slammed into Kyle, sending him crashing against the opposite wall.
His head smacked hard against the wall, making his ears ring.Swearing through the pain, Kyle attempted to get his feet underneath him when something hard slammed against his back, bruising him even through the tactical armor he wore under the work suit.He couldn’t catch his breath as the floor suddenly gave way beneath him.
Smoke and fire rolled over him as Kyle frantically scrabbled for something solid to hold on to as he fell.Gravity tugged at his body before his left hand smacked into something solid and unmoving.Kyle clenched his hand around it tightly and curled his other arm over his helmetless head as everything below him gave way, crashing through the next few levels below and out into open air.
“Reaper!”Alexei bellowed through the black smoke blocking everything from view.
Kyle coughed hard to clear his lungs, swearing as he realized the pant legs of his work suit had caught fire.Dangling by one hand from a broken piece of what turned out to be rebar sticking out of a damaged floor, Kyle frantically slapped at the fire eating holes through his cover uniform.
“Reaper, I need your status, right now!”Katie snapped over the comms.
