Chapter 18 - The General’s Stand
Back inside the fortified intensive care suite, General Alexander Hale stood alone in the center of the devastated room. The double doors had been blown completely off their industrial hinges, leaving a wide, smoking breach fringed with jagged steel.
Three tactical mercenaries poured into the room, their weapons tracking left and right with chilling, synchronized precision. They expected a soft target. They didn't expect a seasoned combat veteran who had spent thirty years fighting in the world's darkest shadows.
Alexander moved with explosive, lethal grace. Ducking behind the heavy oak charting desk as a hail of submachine gun fire splintered the wood into matchwood, he whipped out his service pistol and fired upward through the desk's frame. The round caught the second operator through the thigh, dropping him with a sharp cry of agony.
The lead mercenary pivoted, raising his barrel, but Alexander vaulted over the smoking furniture, slamming his boot directly into the man’s chest and sending him crashing through the remaining reinforced glass window of the ICU.
Before the final operative could adjust his aim, Alexander closed the distance, parried the barrel aside with a brutal downward strike of his forearm, and delivered a devastating elbow smash to the man's throat. The mercenary crumpled instantly, unconscious before he hit the linoleum floor.
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Panting heavily, blood dripping from a grazing shrapnel wound on his shoulder, Alexander checked his weapon’s magazine. Only four rounds left. He looked toward the open utility door leading to the sub-corridor.
Hold them safe, he told himself, jaw clenched in rigid defiance. That’s the only victory that matters.
