In the sudden silence, Mike heard a voice amplified by a megaphone: “Ghost, we know you’re in there. Come out with your hands up. We don’t want to kill an old man. We just want to talk.”
Mike snorted. Talk. Sure.
First they’d shoot his kneecaps, then his elbows, then maybe they’d talk. Standard psychological pressure. Make the target doubt, give them false hope.
“Go to hell,” he thought, carefully opening the back window. The hinges were oiled; they didn’t make a sound. He rolled out into a deep drift, landing softly, and immediately moved under the cover of the foundation.
The cold hit him instantly, biting through his clothes. But the adrenaline was better than any heater. He was outside now.
He was in his element. On the other side of the house, where the entrance was, he heard a crash. The breach team had kicked in the door.
Mike froze, counting the seconds. One. Two.
Three. Boom. The muffled, heavy thump of the grenade inside the enclosed space sounded like a hammer hitting a hollow barrel.
Shouts followed. The tripwire had worked. Someone in the breach team had lost their discipline.
“Minus one, or at least a heavy casualty,” Mike noted. Now the chaos would start. They’d think he was still inside.
Barricaded in the back room or down in the cellar. This gave Mike precious minutes to flank them. He moved toward the woods, taking a wide arc.
The snow was deep. It was hard going. His heart was pounding in his throat, a reminder of his age.
Seventy isn’t thirty. His joints ached, his breath was short. But the muscle memory of years of training forced his body to work efficiently.
Suddenly, to his left, in the thick brush, a scream of terror rang out. Then—sounds of a struggle, growling, and the snap of breaking branches. Blue.
The faithful dog had joined the fight. Mike stopped, pressing against a pine. Through his night vision, he peered into the thicket.
Fifty yards away, one of the mercs, who had likely been pulling perimeter duty, was rolling in the snow, trying to throw off a massive weight. The dog was working silently and lethally. He didn’t bark.
The merc tried to reach for his sidearm, but the dog didn’t give him a chance. A second shooter nearby turned toward the noise and raised his rifle, trying to aim into the tangle of bodies but afraid of hitting his own man. “Wolf! There’s a wolf!” he screamed into his comms.
This was the chance. Mike raised his pistol. Distance: thirty yards.
For a pistol in a winter forest, that was the limit, but he had no choice. He’d left the shotgun behind; he needed a surgical shot. He exhaled, caught the pale glow of the second merc’s head in his sights, and squeezed.
The shot was dry and sharp. The bullet hit right under the rim of the helmet, in the unprotected neck.
The merc jerked, dropped his rifle, and slumped into the snow. “Blue, here! Break!” Mike whistled a specific bird call they’d practiced for years.
The dog, hearing the signal, instantly let go. The merc under him was no longer resisting. Blue, looking like a shadow demon, vanished into the dark, moving deeper into the woods to change position.
Mike didn’t linger either. He knew the others would be coming. He ran to the next cluster of trees, feeling his strength begin to fail.
The adrenaline spike was fading, replaced by a leaden exhaustion. He needed a break, even just a minute. He dropped into a hollow formed by the roots of a fallen tree and covered himself with snow.
In the earpiece of the radio he’d taken from Scar, a voice spoke. That same cold, authoritative voice. “Group Two, report. Group Three, status?”
“Silence.” “Group Two, answer!” “It’s a slaughter out here!” someone rasped. Apparently, the one Blue had mauled was still alive.
“A beast. Huge. Mike is down. My arm… it’s shredded.”
“Stow the panic!” the voice barked. “It’s a dog. Just a big dog. Ghost is in the woods. He’s out of the house.”
“Regroup. Thermal on. Find and eliminate. Work in pairs.”
Mike closed his eyes for a second. Thermals. That was bad.
Very bad. His jacket held heat well, but his face and hands would glow like a Christmas tree. He needed to cool down.
Literally. He started rubbing snow on his face, trying to drop his skin temperature. It was an old trick.
It didn’t work for long, but it could save his life. He looked out from his cover. The woods around the house were alive now.
They were angry, focused, and they knew who they were dealing with. Mike noticed two shooters separate from the group and head his way. They were moving smart…
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