Page 3 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

The desert fades, slamming me back into the neon-soaked reality of Bangkok.

My breathing is ragged. My heart hammers against my ribs—ninety beats per minute. The crosshairs tremble over the stage.

I force the air out of my lungs. My grip tightens on the stock of the TAC-338. Lock it down.

Through the scope, the ballerina finishes her sequence. She stills in an arabesque, her chest heaving with exertion. Behind the thick structural glass, the applause is silent. She smiles, radiant with a joy that doesn't belong anywhere near the violence of my world.

She's innocent. She has no idea the men clapping in the front row are monsters, or that the shadow on the communication tower across the river is the angel of death.

And in sixty seconds, armed men are going to kick down the doors of that theater and drag her into a nightmare from which she'll never return.

"Wraith." Hutch's voice cuts through the static, snapping me back. "The acquisition squad is in the building. They bypassed lobby security. They're in the service elevator. Thirty seconds to target."

I slide my finger off the steel curve of the trigger guard and wrap it around the trigger. The pull is set to two point five pounds. A whisper of pressure. A fraction of a millimeter of movement.

Don't do it.

The federal agent side of my brain issues the warning. Doctrine screams at me.

If you pull that trigger, you blow the operation. You blow the entire network. You lose the trafficking hub. You disobey a direct order from the Director of Task Force 9. You go dark.

Through the optic, the heavy oak doors at the back of the solarium kick open.

Wood splinters. The doors rebound off the walls. Four men in black tactical gear spill into the venue. Ballistic vests. Drop-leg holsters. Balaclavas. They move with the brutality of a military strike team.

The glittering crowd realizes what's happening a full second too late.

Panic erupts. The silent screaming begins. Wealthy patrons scramble over velvet chairs, shattering champagne flutes, slipping on the slick marble floors. The private security guards reach for their weapons, but the trafficking squad is already inside their operational radius.

The lead attacker doesn't break stride. He raises a suppressed MP5 and fires a controlled burst into the chest of the nearest guard. The guard drops, blood pooling on the polished floor.

The crowd scatters, leaving the stage exposed.

The lead attacker pivots. The black muzzle of the MP5 swings toward the stage. Toward her.

The ballerina freezes. The grace vanishes, replaced by paralyzing terror. She stares down the barrel of the weapon, her white tulle dress a beacon against the dark stage.

The mission changes.

The rules fracture.

The distance is no longer an asset. It's a failure.

I'm not going to sit on a ridge and let an innocent person die. Not going to listen to the hollow click of an empty magazine. Not going to let the monsters win. Not tonight. Not on my watch.

"Wraith, hold your position." Hutch's voice loses its clinical detachment, replaced by rising alarm. He sees the feed from the drone overhead. He knows what I'm doing. "Do not engage. Stand down."

The order registers, and I ignore it.

I dial the magnification to maximum. The lens fills with the face of the lead attacker. Cruel eyes glare through the eyeholes of the balaclava. His finger tightens on the trigger of the MP5.

Two clicks left on the windage turret, accounting for the humid drag of the river wind.

I drag the crosshairs up from center mass until the reticle rests between his eyes. The ballistic drop over twelve hundred yards is massive. The hold is three feet above his skull.

A slow exhale.

The chaos of the city, the screaming crowd, Hutch's frantic orders—all of it falls away. The world narrows to a tiny circle of magnified glass.