PROLOGUE
Colombia, Guaviare Department
Herrera cartel logging camp…
A crack.
Low.
Finite.
The kind of sound McGuire LaSalle had heard a thousand times, though, usually from his rifle. He turned, fired, sussing out the sniper’s location from years of picking the perfect nesting site — anticipating every angle.
He’d done that. Scanned every possible weakness before he’d given Dane Holloway the go-ahead to establish a comms connection.
And there hadn’t been a single threat.
Dane dropped, red misting out across his equipment, the resulting thud vibrating through the ground as McGuire’s shot hit the sniper in the shoulder. Had him sinking back into the shadows a moment before a low whoosh lit the air.
A flash, then the ground exploded, everything burning into white-hot fire. McGuire flew back, rifle scope slicing a line down his cheek as he tumbled to a halt, the glow from the crescent moon staring down at him through the billowing dust.
He blinked, eyes gritty, a single, high-pitched tone screaming in his head. Orange light pulsed through the smoke, cast dancing demonic shadows along the kapok trees. He swallowed, choked back the mix of cordite and burnt diesel as tracers snapped overhead, the green light bright against the midnight sky.
McGuire rolled, pain lighting every joint like neon as he scanned the camp. Muzzle flashes lit up the eastern berm as Stone McBride and Cross Morgan laid down cover fire, hair coated with dirt and ash, a scattering of shrapnel laced down their ballistic vests. Footsteps clanged on the raised catwalks north of their position, what sounded like more men with heavy machinery moving in fast, and a distant growl hummed beyond the western gate. Likely an inbound pickup carrying some version of a fifty-cal strapped onto the flatbed.
Their medic, and McGuire’s best friend, Elias “Patch” Kavanaugh appeared out of the blast dust, face smeared with blood and soot, a hunk of metal embedded in one arm. He hiked Dane’s body onto his shoulders before hoofing it toward McGuire.
Patch freed one hand, then grabbed McGuire by the back of the vest, dragging him behind a large log as he placed Dane on the ground, Patch’s eyes narrowed, mouth pinched tight.
McGuire blinked, a few black streaks tracing in from the left, that shrill tone still hijacking his hearing. He stared at Dane’s limp form, the unrelenting roar cutting off his thoughts before they fully registered. “Dane?”
Patch crouched beside him, rifle at a low ready. “He was dead before he hit the ground, but we’re not leaving him here.”
Bile crested McGuire’s throat.
Fifteen seconds.
That’s how long he’d hesitated after Dane had reported the weird transmission. Fifteen seconds of weighing a phantom warning against Langley’s mission brief.
Fifteen seconds that had gotten Dane killed.
McGuire coughed against the choking smoke, the ringing in his ears still replaying the incoming clicks Dane had isolated. Not atmospheric noise like he’d first thought. These had been rhythmic. Telling. A series of long and short pulses that had laid out the future a moment before it had manifested. What had been Morse code for —ambush, go to secure channel sixteen.
McGuire grabbed his radio, tuned it in. “Who the hell is this? How’d you know about the ambush?”
Static hissed across the speakers, the steady clap of gunfire nearly drowning it out until the line cleared. A slow breath sounded over the airwaves, somber, low. “My codename’s Cinder. I don’t have time to explain everything. They’ve got your feed. You need to head to the south fence before they block your only way out.”
McGuire looked at Patch, but his buddy shook his head, fired off a series of covering rounds, the hot casings sizzling against the wet ground. “Who’s got our feed?”
A crackle followed by an irritated huff. “The cartel. I’m staring at a thermal image of you hunkered down behind some shit log, right now.” She grunted, a strange muffled noise rustling over the frequency, as if she was covering the mic. “Look, jackass, I’m burning the last year of my life to the ground in order to save your team. Probably my entire career. I’ll help you for as long as I can, but you’ve got to move. Now.”
McGuire looked at Patch. “Well?”
Patch rolled his shoulders. “We’re dead if we stay here.”
“That’s what I love about you, brother. Your in-depth insights.” He tapped his internal comms. “We’re in. Can you give me a SITREP?”
More rustling, as if she was shifting positions. “You’ve got a PKM on the north catwalks between the generator and the fuel bladder, and cartel closing in from the east and west. Blow the fuel bladder. That should blind the drone if you stay low and near the heat. Head for the south fence. I’ll talk more then.” She paused, then more static. “And lose everything they can use to track you, and I mean everything. The cartel didn’t hack your feed — they were given access.”
