Page 97 of Leading Conviction
“How many of the General’s men did we see back at the CTI warehouse? Four? Five?” Jaybird asked, keeping them on task.
“Hold on, I’ve got another drone on the grounds.” Snake answered for Hawk. “Let me activate it and I’ll scope the outside of the whole facility.”
Hawk’s feet wiggled in the air from nerves as he waited impatiently for Snake to mobilize the second drone. Once he had it pulled up on his device, Snake leaned in so Hawk could watch the footage filling the screen.
“This one is stored on a small ledge nailed into a tree on the outskirts of the facility’s property line,” Snake explained.
In seconds, the drone’s camera showed the inside of the forest surrounding BlackStone before it lifted up and provided an aerial view of the facility. It was surreal to watch the tiny trees whiz by on the small screen while monstrous treetops stabbed the sky beneath their feet.
Draco unbuckled himself and hovered over Snake’s other side. After a moment of watching, he pointed at the screen.
“Looks like they blew through the gate. And there—shit. Get closer… You see that black van on the grounds… Fuck, they’re setting up charges outside of the garage!”
“Christ,” Devil growled through his replacement headset. “After the bombing, we redesigned the facility to camo the garage. Outsiders can’t even tell it’s not like every other wall on the facility. How do they still know our weakest point of entry?”
There was a brief silence before Phoenix cursed.
“Goddamn Henry motherfucking Brown,” he growled. “Marco said he had a damn visitor. Betcha a million dollars whoever that was worked on the General’s team. Fuckin’A, dude, I should’ve killed that son of a bitch traitor when I had the chance.”
“We needed him for the case,” Snake replied.
“Fuck the case!” Phoenix yelled. “If that cocksucker gets my girl killed after all she’s been through, I’ll break into the jail myself and burn that motherfucker to ashes in his shitty cell.”
Hawk bit his tongue, quietly agreeing with every damn thing Phoenix said.
“I don’t want the villain who will destroy the world for me, I want the hero who saves it…”
Well, dove, I might just have to be both, he thought while his grasp tensed around his rifle grip.
A blast detonated on the screen. Panic shocked down Hawk’s spine and his pulse skyrocketed. He squinted at the phone to see one of the garage doors in pieces.
“Snake, how many are on the roof? Can I land?” Phoenix asked. “Hell, I’ll land on them for all I care. Never seen someone get caught up in rotor blades before. Could be fun.”
“Looks like there’s three on the roof trying to breach the stairwell,” Snake answered. “And three more just entered the ground floor with the General after taking out the garage doors—”
On the screen, a flash erupted in the middle of the roof where the stairwell exited. Smoke billowed up in the air with the single explosion. The flames quickly lessened to embers, revealing the concrete and steel structure that had once housed the stairwell. Now it had rubble for a door.
He looked up from the screen to see the smoke rising from the roof. It physically hurt to be close enough to see his home get attacked, but too far away to defend it.
“Fuck.” Hawk punched the helo’s metal wall. “We have to get down there,now.”
Unable to just sit there watching his home smolder, Hawk shoved his rifle onto his back and twisted around, straining against the strap securing him to the Little Bird’s frame. He reached for the rope they used to rappel out of the helo, wrapped his arm around it once and tugged, making sure it was tight on his forearm. In his next move, he unhooked the restraint connecting him to the helicopter. When he shifted to face outward again, he unholstered his pistol, now ready to either fast-rope out of the helicopter, shoot his way down, or both.
“I don’t know if any others got inside.” Snake shook his head. “Or how they got on the roof in the first place.”
“Fire escape?” Jaybird suggested.
Snake pressed a button on his screen to fly the drone around the back of the facility before nodding. “Yup. Fire escape. The one on the back is down.”
“That shows us for being proactive about fire,” Devil huffed.
Hawk shook his head. “Get us on that roof, Phoenix. There’re six of us. We can take on those three.”
“Copy that.”
“Remember, men, this team could be as ignorant as we were working for the General. Try to keep them alive, but if it’s a matter of us or them? Do what you have to.”
As they cleared the tree line, Hawk’s fingers clenched tighter and tighter on the rope the closer they got to the rooftop. His other hand loosely held his pistol in his lap, ready to pick up when they were—
