Page 137 of Specter Bred

Great!

Our simple plan had just gone to hell.

I needed to adapt like Grizzly said.

I slowed my breathing and kept watching through my scope. One enforcer stopped just outside the entrance and began patting down his chest rig.

"Cigarettes..." I muttered, knowing instinctively what he was looking for.

He checked one pouch, then another. When he flipped open a utility pouch, I caught the briefest flash of olive green inside.

Fragmentation grenade!

The flap immediately started falling closed again, leaving me with only a sliver of the grenade exposed and seconds to decide whether I was actually going to attempt the shot.

It was fucking ridiculous.

At this distance, with a target that small and disappearing by the second, most marksmen wouldn’t have considered it. There were too many ways to miss and no opportunity for a second attempt. Even through the magnification of my scope, I had barely enough exposed surface to put a round where it needed to go.

Then Grizzly’s words came back to me.

There’s a place for you in my unit, Hayes. Not because Archer comes with you. Because you’ve earned the chance to prove you belong there.

This was why he’d picked me. Graves had watched me shoot. He knew what I could do with a rifle, and he’d put me on this ridge because when everyone else looked at a shot and saw impossible, I didn’t.

I’m counting on you.

The last sliver of olive green was disappearing beneath the flap.

I settled the crosshairs exactly where they needed to be, released a slow breath, and squeezed the trigger.

The suppressed rifle gave a muted crack.

The round crossed the valley and struck the grenade.

For the briefest instant, nothing happened.

Then everything erupted.

The explosion tore through the mouth of the mine, vaporizing the nearest enforcer and hurling another backward. Already unstable rock groaned under the force of the blast before the entrance gave way entirely, collapsing in a deafening roar as tons of stone and debris crashed down over the tunnel.

Well, that solved two problems.

Whatever men Claybourne had waiting underground were sealed inside, and more importantly, he no longer had anywhere to retreat.

The surviving enforcers scattered across the valley, shouting to one another through the ringing left by the explosion, but I was already transitioning to my next target. The crosshairs swept across his chest and settled.

One squeeze.

He crumpled before he’d even figured out where the first shot had come from.

The other enforcers recovered faster. Instead of running, he searched the ridgeline until his attention locked onto the faint glint of my scope.

“There!” he shouted, thrusting a finger toward my position.

Muzzle flashes erupted below. Rounds snapped through the brush around me, chewing bark from the trees and kicking dirt into my face. I rolled behind a boulder as another burst tore through the spot where I'd been lying only seconds earlier.

So much for staying hidden.