Chapter 8 - The Breaching Shock-8
The lead tactical operator reached into his heavy utility vest and pulled out a small, rectangular strip of gray plastic explosive—a localized linear breaching charge designed to shear through heavy timber doors without causing a structural collapse. He pressed the adhesive strip along the seam of the thick oak frame, connecting a wireless detonator to the base.
"Get down!" I screamed, lunging back inside the central room.
I threw my large frame over Emma’s gurney, pinning her flat against the mattress just as the front doorway erupted in a blinding flash of orange fire and a deafening, concussive BOOM.
The heavy log walls shuddered, the glass windows along the ridge line shattering into a million tiny shards that sprayed across the floorboards like shrapnel. The heavy timber door was blown clean off its iron hinges, crashing into the stone fireplace with a terrifying scream of tearing wood and short-circuiting electrical lines.
Thick, acrid gray smoke flooded the room, blinding our vision and choking our lungs with the smell of sulfur and burning cedar.
Through the haze, I heard the rapid, rhythmic pop-pop-pop of submachine guns as the private operators cleared the threshold, firing into the smoke to suppress any resistance. The bullets tore through the pine cabinets above my head, showering the room in a rain of white dust and splinters.
Marcus didn't hesitate. As the first operator stepped through the smoke, his weapon lowered to scan the floor, Marcus launched himself upward from behind the terminal desk like a coiled spring. He slammed a heavy iron fire poker straight into the operator’s tactical helmet visor, shattering the plastic and driving him back into the shattered frame of the door with a raw, adrenaline-fueled strength.
But before Marcus could secure the dropped weapon, the second operator stepped into the light, raising his carbine and aiming it directly at Marcus’s chest.
"Marcus! No!" I shouted, lunging forward across the wet floorboards.
I swung the heavy red-handled bolt cutters in a brutal, vertical arc, catching the second operator squarely across the wrists with a force that shattered the bones in his forearm. The submachine gun flew from his frozen fingers, clattering dismally into the dark pool of drainage water near the door.
But the victory was short-lived.
A heavy boot slammed into my chest, catching my ribs with a brutal force that drove me back against the stone fireplace. The air left my lungs in a ragged gasp, and I fell onto my knees, my hands trembling as I tried to clear the blood from my eyes.
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Thomas Croft stood over me, his face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated political triumph. He reached down, grabbed the collar of my uniform shirt, and dragged me up against the hot stones, pressing the cold barrel of a compact pistol flush against my temple.
"It’s over, Ramirez," Thomas hissed, his breath hot against my neck over the roar of the wind outside. "Look at the terminal monitor. The script is dead. The corporate authority wins every single time."
