Jed took a knee, steadied his aim, and when the man’s eyes flashed red—confirming he was indeed a Dark One—he squeezed the trigger. The sentry’s head jerked backward as Jed’s suppressed round tore through his skull. The body pitched over and dropped into the gravel beside the hangar. Jed had angled his shot carefully, minimizing the likelihood that the round would exit the man’s head and impact the hangar wall, alerting the tangos inside to their presence.

“Variable, One—” Jed said, but Ben talked over him with the info he wanted.

“No movement inside on thermal, One,” came Ben’s cool voice.

Ben had not mentioned the status and position of the four-man team still riding in Vandal Two, but Jed was out of time and had to assume they were on schedule to drop and breach on the opposite side of the hangar. He moved to the door, Carl crossing behind him and taking position on the far side.

Jed scanned the parking lot and surrounding area behind for threats as his teammate prepared to set a breacher charge on the hangar door. He felt a squeeze on his right shoulder announcing Nisha and Hyeon had joined them.

“Vandal Two—five seconds,” came the report Jed had been waiting for.

“Check the door,” Nisha said. “Feels open.”

Jed nodded to Carl, who reached a hand onto the knob, turned it, and a big grin spread across the operator’s face.

First lucky break . . .

The door was unlocked; no need for a breacher. Carl rocked his head up and down, establishing a three-nod cadence as Jed pulled a flash-bang grenade from his kit. On three, Carl jerked the door open. Jed pulled the pin, tossed the banger inside, and Carl shut the door quickly behind his toss.

“Sword Two on the slide,” Eli announced in his ear, just as the sound of the second helicopter arriving into a hover on the ramp side of the hangar reached him.

The whump of the flash-bang rocked the corrugated metal of the hangar wall.

“Go,” Jed barked and Carl jerked the hangar door open.

Low in his crouch, Jed slipped inside and cleared left. He felt Carl enter and clear right, with Hyeon and Nisha on their heels. His corner clear, Jed vectored left, exiting the lane of potential defensive fire, which came a heartbeat later. A barrage of gunfire tore through the hangar door now ten feet behind him, tracers screaming through the smoke from the grenade like laser beams. The shots went wild, the bad guy shooters still blind from the flash-bang.

He moved left, Carl trailing with him to his right, reading the play, as Nisha and Hyeon continued to push to the center. Movement in the smoke to  center got his eye, but the pair of Shepherds unloaded a volley. Jed heard a scream and a body drop followed by a rifle clattering to the floor.