Page 120 of Nothing to Fear

Razor-sharp instincts made the team the best and helped keep them alive.

But how had the mercs managed to get that far with tympanic disruptors active?

Ares yanked out his earplugs with no side effects and signaled for them to do the same.

“What happened to the crippler?” Gideon asked.

Ares shook his head. “The devices wouldn’t malfunction. Signal must be jammed.”

Putting a communications earpiece in, Gideon checked one of the channels. No static. No pulses. But no chirp in response to the ping he’d sent through either, as though all signals had been swallowed into a perfect void.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “A smart jammer.”

He took out the security device that’d monitor the mobile trackers. Bright red dots were lit up on the screen. It had GPS antijam tech, but he wanted to make sure it hadn’t been affected.

“Something next-gen like that isn’t easy to come by,” Castle said. “It must be big and powerful if the radius can cover the entire warehouse.”

Gideon backed up, testing the perimeter of the jammer. Fifteen feet out from the building, the next ping he sent through comms squawked in return.

He marked the zone with a hand signal for the others and hustled back.

“We’re outmanned five to one,” Castle said. “They’re well-armed, and we just knocked.”

“But I bet we’re better-looking.” Alistair’s face was deadpan.

Gideon heaved a breath. “What’s on the other side of the building? Is there a fire escape?” he asked Ares.

“There are a couple of parked cars and a fire escape from the roof down two stories with a pull-down ladder. It’s old, rickety as shit, and not hanging on by much. I don’t think it’ll support any body weight.”

“Okay. No way Laurel is on the ground floor. A sure bet the jammer is upstairs along with her and Daedalus. Ares and Reece, breach the rear doors on the north side.” Reece was the best with demolition and could get them in quickly. “We’ll enter here. It’s going to be a combat zone. They’re armed to the teeth. If we disable the jammer, we can end this cleaner and faster.”

Everyone agreed and holstered their 9mms in their thigh rigs, opting to use their SIG MCX Rattlers instead. Since this was no longer going to be a simple walk-in and cleanup, they needed something with a greater kick. The suppressed compact submachine guns strapped across their backs were chambered in .300 Blackout rounds—hollow-point and subsonic with pretty sweet knockdown power.

“Let’s do this,” Castle said.

Ares and Reece went around to the other side.

It was rare for the team to work in such a large group, but when they did, they functioned like a well-oiled machine. Hardcore synergy.

Castle pulled the pins on two stun grenades from his pack and pitched both inside the building through broken windows. A barrage of bullets fired outside and sprayed the steel door. In five seconds, a devastating bang of 185 decibels and eleven million candelas of flash, followed by white smoke, would go off. Anyone standing close to it would have ruptured eardrums and temporary blindness, and everyone else would be distracted.

Try to jam that, motherfuckers. Gideon counted down with his hand. Five. Four.

The front doors to the warehouse blew off and a glowing projectile shot past them, hitting a tree. The trunk exploded into cinders.

Holy hell. They had RPGs.

The stun grenades inside detonated with a concussive boom.

They had to move now.

Gideon gave the go signal. He, Castle, and Alistair flowed inside, peeling off in different directions.

Dense smoke wafted throughout the entry of the industrial space, not reaching the high ceiling where metal ductwork ran in heavy rows. Dark figures skated in between concrete pillars and rectangular cases, digging in for the fight.

Gideon knew how his team would maneuver across the wide warehouse floor based on their special operations training and his years working alongside them.

He eased to the far wall, looking for a different angle to exploit.