Near Jay, New York

  The moon hung over the crossroads. It reflected in the yellow and white of the road's painted lines, a glowing contrast to encroaching evergreens, branches dark with needles and a deeper coat of shadow. A warm breeze sent skeletal leaves skittering across the road, a scrabbling, crablike noise that sent the nearby cows to mooing. The deep call bounced off the trees and hills—a forlorn sound, unloved by all but the lonely. The sorrow of their ancestors pulsed in their oversized hearts. They mourned.

  Headlights swept the herd as a van barreled up the road, its blinker forecasting a right-hand turn.

  Horus Overwatch. The men drew near the end of their journey, and the start of their mission. The work they did in the next hour would make the world safer, and pad their bank accounts to boot.

  Rigel eased onto the brake and turned just shy of the lonesome cattle, following a smaller, unlined tributary of the previous route. He kept their speed low and flicked the turn signal on sight of another fork. Left this time—onto a gravel single-lane, and past the rustic wood-carved sign, its lettering legible even in moonlight.

  WELCOME TO SANGUINE SPRINGS.

  Rigel killed the van's headlights and reduced their speed. The van's automatic transmission shifted as the vehicle ascended a steep grade. Lukas felt his body press into the passenger seat like an echo of takeoff, while the men in the back jostled sideways on their benches. It would all be worth it, soon.

  Johansen called to Lukas from the back. "How much longer of this? I'm tired of jostling against Gunther. He likes it too much."

  "Very funny," Lukas replied. "We're almost there."

  He'd seen the name plenty over the last twenty-four hours—doing his own area study for the target package, searching for contingencies, pitfalls, landmarks. In that time, he'd taken a few minutes to look up the name. The hamlet drew its name from the adjacent waters—both Sanguine Spring and the liver-shaped Sanguine Pond into which it flowed.

  He still wasn't sure whether it was sanguine as in hopeful, or sanguine as in bloody.

  It didn't matter. Not really.

  Tonight, its definition would certainly end up following the latter path of the dictionary.

  Lukas barked a command to Rigel. The driver nodded and pulled the van smoothly to a stop, blocking the road from left to right. On the one lane, with no shoulder, their van was an effective roadblock. He stopped the darkened vehicle, reducing sound to the ping of a cooling engine block.

  "Wait for my sign," Lukas said. He unbuckled, opened the passenger door and slid from the van. He bent back into the van, withdrawing a medium-sized black duffel from the floor.

  From his bag, Lukas retrieved a device somewhere in size between a bread maker and a laptop. Sleek, old-school, with knobs, sliders, and a phone-style ten-key pad. He extended an antenna, two feet of length, and flipped it on. He adjusted some dials, pressed some buttons, and nodded as the LED readout showed him what he wanted to see. Cell signals blocked. Landline phones, paused. A cell phone jammer. Anything within a quarter mile of their location would not be able to get a signal. 5G, 4G, or LTE. All were off the table for the night.

  Kabuki theater, he rolled his eyes. The small cluster of homes were nearly off-the-grid, their power lines strung with the bare minimum for the five domiciles. No phone wire, no cable. And with iron-ore rich Jay Range blocking line of sight to the cell towers in Plattsburgh or Burlington? His jammer might be an unnecessary and redundant performance.

  With any luck, the retirees in town were already asleep and would not even notice the hour, or less, of interruption in their Wordle playing or YouTube watching. He rose from the glowing display and walked to the van's rear doors.

  Lukas opened the hatch, bathing the men inside in cool darkness. "We're on site. Alarm mitigated." He glanced at the Lange and S?hne on his wrist. "Five minutes. Kit on, load up, and roll out. We disembark from the dark side of the van."

  The night came alive with the locker room sounds of rustling nylon and clicking latches as the men unbuckled, leaning down to retrieve their kits from beneath their bench seats. The team donned their armor—London Bridge Trading Company plate carriers, dark blue. The plate carriers featured three pouches for standard issue magazines—pouches bulging with spare shotshells, or snug with composite PMags, each loaded with 28 rounds of 300 Blackout, a believable hollowpoint subsonic variety of this ammo. Behind the ammo the carriers bulged, stretching the Cordura along the angled contours of level four ceramic plates. Standard loadout, but more overkill. The plates could stop anything from a 30-06 rifle round on down.

  The men donned ballistic helmets—snug second skulls, each wired with Peltor noise-canceling headsets and front-heavy with NODs. But not heavy enough.

  Lukas frowned as he stared at the twin night-vision tubes worn by his team. "Johansen?"

  "Yes?" the tall Dane replied.

  "Why aren't we running quad-tubes?"

  "The op zone is in the woods, heavily forested. I figured weight was a bigger factor than field of vision."

  "Field of vision is always a priority," Lukas said. "Always." It was true that reducing the night vision scopes to two lowered the total weight half a kilo—but it also reduced their peripheral vision to nothing, leaving them with only two narrow tunnels of sight. They would manage, but it showed oversight on Johansen's part. Despite his concern over contingencies, the Dane was penny-wise and pound-foolish when it came to preparation.

  Something to deal with later.

  One by one, the operators exited, looking left and right before making a hard turn to the dark side of the van, shielded from view. They stood in silence, clad alike in midnight blues, each man discernible from the other only by variations in height or telltale backup weapons.

  "Remember, this is a pincer ambush. We're going in two teams," Lukas said. "I'll have four. Johansen, the other four. My contingent will come down from the north to breach the back door. We will infiltrate, locate, and eliminate." He addressed Johansen. "You lot come in from the south, slide up between the two southern houses, and hold. Cover the front of our target house, as well as the road."

  "That leaves one man spare," Johansen said.

  "Yes. Rigel. He stays here with the van—and with Ma Deuce. You wanted a contingency plan? You've got it. Forget covering fire. This is uber-fire."

  Rigel stood proud, hands on his hips. Johansen whistled. "That would do it, sir."

  "I'm counting on it," Lukas replied, then addressed the team. "The rest of you—weapons at condition one." The night air rattled as the men loaded their weapons, filling the chambers of rifles and shotguns alike with potent death. Dust covers sprung open, bolt carriers slid backwards, and the first hungry rounds found their seats as eight hands released, sending the charging handles forward, driven by the propulsion of the large springs buried in the rifles' buttstock buffer tubes.

  300 Blackout was effective at many ranges. At the close quarters it would be called on to operate tonight with their suppressed rifles, it would be more than enough.

  The pump shotguns weren't anything to shrug off either. Loaded with double aught buckshot—eight lead balls the size of a pistol round, delivered with a fiery blast of power. While not the miraculous "point and shoot" spread from video games, the kinetic energy contained in the round would chew through doors, sheetrock, and bone without remorse.

  It also made a hell of a fruit salad, if you got creative enough.

  "You, you, you, and you," Lukas said, picking his men on a whim. Johansen and Rigel were specialists. The rest? Interchangeable. The worst qualified member of Horus Overwatch was better qualified than most men in any branch of any military service in the United States or elsewhere. His team would do what he needed. This is what they trained for. This is what they served for. This is how they earned their money and how they lived.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Lukas and his contingent started slowly and stealthily to the north, fading into the shadows, their NODs turning night to green-hued day, making their way over dead fallen branches, looping around towards a house where one Allison Myles could be found.

  Map of Sanguine Springs

  Sanguine Springs

  Sanguine Springs boasted no streetlamps. Only floods on houses. None of them on tonight.

  A shadow crossed the hamlet's center, making a beeline for the first home on the left.

  Allison crunched forthrightly across the accusing gravel. Her every footfall drew fresh criticism from the pebbles underneath. Fail. Freak. Fail. Freak. Fail. Freak.

  Fail.

  Her face burned. Something rolled down her cheek. She reached out with her left hand to wipe it away. It was curled into a fist. Allison sighed and unclenched, stretched her stiffened fingers, and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.

  Thump thump thump. She was at her father's door and up the stairs before she knew it. Allison knew she was warm with anger.

  She fumbled with the key, her left hand clumsy with the unfamiliar motion, then shouldered through the door. It swung wide, admitting her into the cool darkness of her father's house—her house now, she supposed. The door clicked shut behind her, sealing her inside with the stale air and the ghost of cigarette smoke that had never quite left the walls. She stood there in the entryway, breathing hard, her chest tight with something she couldn't name.

  Frustration and embarrassment coursed through her. She felt the pulsing in her temples, throbbing with a beat that matched the pulsing of the lead on her arm.

  I hate this thing, she said, grabbing the prosthetic with her left hand and tugging, twisting in a motion that would disconnect it. She felt the arm slide to the side, then the ever-unusual suction as it disconnected from her stump. The skin beneath just ended.

  It had been years before the scar tissue and scabbing faded away, leaving nothing more than the basic smooth nothingness of two inches of bone that could flap at her elbow. It was that fraction of an arm that allowed her prosthetic to work so well, that and the Tetherly technology that powered it. She wondered how long the arm would remain operative with her away from headquarters and the machine on the fritz.

  There might be a technology shop. Strike that. There might be a bio-hardware shop in Plattsburgh or Burlington that could handle the arm, but she doubted it. It would take a city the size of Albany, if not Boston or New York, to take a real solid look at her arm.

  She took the arm, walked across the living room floor, and connected it to the USB-C charger on her father's glass coffee table. She rested the arm there, between two portraits: one of her mother, father, Chris, and a much younger, still whole of body, Allison—taken in a happier, simpler time of life.

  The next portrait, one of Jake, her father, even younger, in his teens, with his brother, her uncle. Brad was in fatigues, either about to ship out or between deployments. They had rifles and beanies on their heads. Hunting season, it must have been.

  She didn't know either of the people in the picture. Her younger father, now gone. Her younger uncle, now a shell of his former self, with secrets of his own. Her uncle, a retail mogul? Her uncle, the owner of the town? It was a shock. She didn't know how much military retirements provided, but she didn't think it was enough to buy all this land, or build these houses. Even if he did get it at a really cheap rate.

  But it was the photo that included her that made Allison feel even more alienated. She felt no connection to her former self, to her scornful mother, or her father. Was he a good father? She didn't know. The calamity of one July evening had shattered all of her expectations, and any chance Jake Clark had had of showing her what a father was supposed to be. He had tried, though through the years his efforts became more half-hearted, and Allison never responded.

  Oh, she responded, but not in a way he would have wanted. Not like a father and a daughter should. She felt it without ever fully going into it.

  And yet when she had lost him, the main emotion had been numbness, an emptiness, and a bit of regret that she felt less regret than she should. Even now, she was here not because her father was gone and she missed him, but because his absence provided her a place to go to escape her own troubles.

  She ran her left hand through her hair, making a fist at the nape of her neck to clutch her ponytail, then let the hair fall across her shoulders while she dropped the scrunchie to the floor.

  I need to get this sorted. Dad's stuff. This house. I need to sell it, figure out what's going on, and move on.

  It wasn't what she wanted to do, but she didn't know what she wanted. No, she did. She wanted an arm that worked, or her own arm. She wanted men in her life who wouldn't confuse, insult, or assault her. And deep down, she wanted a father, even though she didn't know what that meant anymore. And now, she never would.

  Her face was still warm, and the tears were still flowing. Allison realized she'd been sniffling for a few minutes. Sniffling, which had turned into sobbing. Now her cheeks were veritably—no, now her cheeks were all but vibrating. Not from lack of blood flow, but from living nerves. She was all pins and needles across her face. Her mind swam.

  I need to sleep.

  She walked through an empty hall and pushed open a door on the front side of the house—the door to the master bedroom. It was the first time she'd opened the door, first time she'd seen her father's bed, still tidily made and untouched from the morning before his death.

  Allison had slept on the couch last night, wrapped in Jake's Carhartt, imagining it as a hug from its half-forgotten owner. It had helped, a little. Tonight, she needed something more.

  So she climbed onto the thickly comforted bedspread, buried her face in a feather pillow, and passed out into sweet nothingness.

  Lukas tramped through the underbrush, leading the four men behind him through the woods. Dead branches reached like ghosts of the fallen, grabbing at shoulders and guns. Should have ensured we had four-tubers. An oversight. His oversight. It irritated him.

  He slipped, the moss of an unseen rock catching him off guard. Only a steady hand and a handy sapling kept the team leader from sprawling rifle first on the leaf-covered ground. No one spoke. Small mercy.

  They had traversed the woods, first zigging, then zagging, till the target's exterior lights faded from view. Then, far enough out to avoid cameras, and deep enough in the forest to cover any extraneous travel noises, Lukas had changed course, leading the men southward, towards their target.

  I wonder what this one really did to earn our "Tender Mercies."

  The trees thinned. Through the green wash of his NODs, Lukas caught the angular geometry of the house. He raised a fist, and dropped to his knee. The men behind him froze.

  There was something irregular about the exterior. He stepped closer, wincing as another branch cracked beneath his foot. Logs. The house was made of them—or at least covered in the bark-clad trunks. Just like in the old movies. He hadn't realized people still used the rustic form of construction.

  Lukas took his time, evaluating the structure. Single story. Pitched roof. Steel. Five windows and a door along the back wall—all of them dark. Beside the house, a sleek sedan sat alongside a wrecked truck. Good. The target was asleep, or in another room. Either worked.

  Lukas spoke quietly into his radio. "Alpha team, at the ready." Two clicks back from Johansen. South team in position.

  Lukas rose to his feet, one hand on his rifle, the other raised to signal the advance when the world turned to daylight.

  Flood lights exploded to life with a mechanical chunk-chunk-chunk from the house's peak and surrounding trees. The forest became a stage, every tree trunk casting witch-like shadows, every operator suddenly visible in harsh white brilliance.

  "LIGHTS!" someone shouted behind him. Their NODs whited out, the sensitive tubes overloaded. Lukas flipped his up, blinking away the sudden purple-green flare of a retina burn. Motion detection. Schei?e.

  Behind him, in the haze, someone panicked. The woods flared with another, deadlier light source—a rifle burst. Confused, disoriented, the rest of the team opened fire. The woods strobed like a smoky nightclub; the rounds buried themselves in the foot-thick log exterior.

  "CEASE FIRE! CEASE—" Lukas tried, but it was too late.

  Glass shattered. The logs erupted with puckered welts, spewing sawdust into the flood's beams like a fine mist.

  Enraged, Lukas drew his backup gun. He thrust the 1911 Colt Commander straight up into the air and fired three measured rounds. The sudden, unsuppressed fireballs broke through where verbal commands could not. The men stood down, their weapons falling silent.

  "What the hell was that?" Lukas shouted. Despite the ear protection and muted weapons, his ears keened with a familiar, incessant whine. Before his men could answer, Johansen's voice broke through on the radio.

  "Engaging from the south."

  "Hold, damnit," Lukas ordered, "HOLD!" but Johansen and his men had already commenced firing. He could hear the muffled impacts on the domicile's southern face. From his vantage point, Lukas could see the flashes of rifle fire competing with more floodlights.

  Too many floodlights.

  Lukas did a tactical sweep of the horizon. It wasn't just Myles's house. The whole town was bathed in harsh, high definition beams of light. The floods streamed from rooflines, garages, even the tops of some trees. That little detail hadn't shown up on the area study.

  Across town, the southern team finally stopped firing. Lukas felt a surge of relief—until Johansen's panicked voice filled his ears. "Man down! We're under attack!" The headset fell silent. The firing resumed.

  The bottom fell out of Lukas's stomach. His guts churned. He went to his belly, and army-crawled behind a tree. He crouched, out of the lights, and motioned for his men to do the same. He felt something trickling down his spine, something he hadn't felt in a long time. Not blood.

  Panic.

  What IS this place?