Chapter 5 - The Ambush at Gate Four
The rain had started—a sudden, biting California downpour that turned the dusty parade grounds into slick, dark mud.
We piled into an unmarkable armored Chevy Suburban idling outside the command center. Sergeant Major Reed slammed the driver’s side door, threw the vehicle into gear, and peeled away from the curb with tires throwing rooster tails of mud and gravel. In the passenger seat, Vance monitored a tactical tablet displaying the base’s internal security feeds, while Brock and I sat in the back.
Brock was uncomfortably silent now, staring straight ahead through the bulletproof glass as the rain lashed against the windshield.
“How far out is the vessel?” I asked, sliding a tactical communications headset over my ears and syncing it with the base’s encrypted channel.
“Coast Guard cutter Manticore is trying to tow it toward the southern pier,” Vance reported, his eyes glued to the tablet. “Distance to shore: three miles. But Avery... look at the thermal imaging from the harbor entrance.”
I leaned forward, peering at the screen. The thermal feed showed the ghostly outline of the civilian cargo ship drifting toward the docks. But surrounding it in the dark waters were half a dozen small, fast-moving heat signatures—unmarked rigid-hull inflatable boats cutting through the swells at forty knots.
“They’re not coast guard,” I said quietly. “They’re interceptors.”
“Hostiles?” Brock asked, his voice dropping an octave as his combat instincts finally kicked back in over his wounded ego.
“Professional,” I replied, pulling my 9mm sidearm from its holster and checking the chamber. “They aren’t here to capture the ship. They’re here to sink it—and anyone who gets close enough to look inside.”
“We’re approaching Gate Four,” Reed barked over the engine roar, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight. “The outer perimeter road is blocked by—hell.”
Reed slammed on the brakes. The Suburban skidded forty feet across the wet asphalt before coming to a violent stop just fifty yards short of the base’s southern security gate.
Stretched across the roadway was a civilian flatbed truck, its hazard lights blinking lazily in the rain. But it wasn't an accident. Standing beside the truck were four men wearing high-visibility construction vests over tactical body armor, holding automatic weapons pointed straight at our windshield.
Before Reed could put the truck in reverse, a stream of muzzle flashes erupted from the tree line, riddling the hood of our Suburban with armor-piercing rounds.
“Out! Out!” I shouted, kicking my door open and diving out onto the wet pavement as glass exploded inward across the backseat.
We scrambled behind the concrete barricades of the checkpoint while return fire echoed down the road. But as I raised my weapon and sighted down the barrel through the pouring rain, my comms headset crackled to life with a voice that made my blood run instantly cold.
It wasn't Vance. It wasn't Reed.
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It was a voice I hadn't heard in eight years—a man I had personally buried in a shallow grave in the Syrian desert, speaking directly over our secure tactical frequency.
“Welcome back to the grid, Captain. We’ve been waiting for you to open the box.”
