Dante and Ford ran ahead with Bone Messer from Bravo Team, their lungs burning in the sand and thin desert air. The nuke convoy was minutes from crossing the Massif Pass, which was a choke point. They had to get it before they reached Khalil and Krueger.
“Bravo’s two kilometers out,” Ford panted. “They’ll cut them off from behind.”
Dante nodded. “The front is ours.”
Dust plumes appeared in the distance with three trucks rumbling through the pass.
Ford lifted the binoculars. “Three vehicles. No armor. Khalil’s men are guarding the lead truck.”
“And the device?” Bone asked.
“Likely the last truck,” Ford said. “But they’re guarding the first truck too.”
Bone caught Ford’s face. “Could there be two?”
Dante steadied his breathing. “All right. We take the back one. We’re closest to that. Quiet if we can. Loud if we can’t.”
Ford smirked. “It’s always loud with you.”
Dante didn’t deny it.
As they crept closer through the rocks, gunfire cracked from above. Ford spun. “Bravo’s early!”
“No,” Dante’s eyes narrowed, “someone else is firing.”
Shouts echoed. Men screamed. Vehicles skidded.
“Khalil’s guards?” Bone called.
“No, it’s Krueger. Krueger is jumping the gun. He’s firing at the men in the trucks.” Dante felt it before he saw it. Through the dust, a silhouette emerged, rifle in hand, firing at Khalil’s men with glee. Krueger had beaten them here. “Bastard’s going for the nuke alone.”
Ford whispered, “Shit…he’s gonna blow the whole deal.”
“No.” Dante stepped forward, jaw like stone. “It’s not the deal. He wants the device. Khalil must not have given him the device we saw.”
“Why the hell would he…?”
But Dante knew. Krueger wanted leverage, power, and Shannon dead. This wasn’t just sabotage. This was obsession sharpened into a weapon.
Gunfire lit the rocks like lightning.
Ford sprinted for the rear truck, Dante covering him. Bullets sparked off stone, ricocheting wildly. Ford yanked the rear door open. There it was—a metal case. He opened it. Inside were two empty slots and one device.
“Got a device!” he shouted. “Dante, cover me!”
Dante fired precision bursts, dropping two militants advancing from the ridge. “Move!” he barked.
The convoy had moved into the pass when everything went wrong. Ford, carrying the nuclear device strapped in its shock harness, jogged behind Bravo Team as they moved down the ravine walls.
Sean Paulsen’s voice crackled once in Dante’s earpiece: “Two minutes to exfil. Move.”
WHOOSH. BOOM.
An RPG screamed in from the ridge behind them and detonated against the cliffside. The world went white. Rock exploded. Shrapnel whirled. The ground heaved.
Dante didn’t think. He moved. He slammed into Ford from behind, throwing both of them behind a jut of broken stone just as a shower of rock sheared the air where Ford’s skull had been.
Ford hit the ground with a grunt, arms still locked around the nuke case. Dante took the impact on his back. The shrapnel penetrated his skin. His ankles were buried beneath the falling rocks.
