Chapter 157: Three Idiots Go South - Part 3
The Michoacán night was thick and warm, a slow-breathing thing that clung to the skin and smelled of dust, diesel, and wet earth. Crickets sang somewhere below, and from far off, the faint echo of gunfire rolled over the hills like a tired memory. A crescent moon hung low over the valley, half-smothered by thin clouds. It was just bright enough to paint the outlines of the world, but not enough to betray men who didn't want to be seen.
On a slope a few hundred meters above the valley floor, two silhouettes lay flat behind a tree line, bodies pressed to the dirt. They were dressed in civilian clothes, simple cargo pants, dark T-shirts, but over that, someone had strapped them into real work: plate carriers, chest rigs, thigh holsters. Their faces were wrapped in dark shemaghs, goggles and NVGs pushed up onto their foreheads. No insignia, no patches, no logos. Nothing that connected them to anyone.
The gear was good. Too good for two guys who supposedly fell out of a plane in the middle of Mexico.
Ethan knew why. Clef had "friends."
And those "friends" apparently had access to very nice black-market toys.
Ethan adjusted the stock of his M4, shortened, suppressed, foregrip, red dot with NV-compatible settings, and a flashlight taped on the side with dirty cloth. No serials. No markings. A gun that didn't exist.
Beside him, lying on his stomach, Dr. Alto Clef peered through a long, lean sniper rifle with a suppressed barrel and a scope that absolutely did not belong in civilian hands. A folding MPX-style SMG was slung across his back with a quick-release clip, ready to swing forward at a moment's notice.
Clef looked like the world's most chaotic uncle who'd somehow decided to cosplay as Delta Force.
Ethan looked like someone who'd gotten dragged into that uncle's bullshit.
They watched the base below.
It sat in a shallow basin cut into the hillside, surrounded by a double-ring fence, first chain-link with barbed wire, then an inner concrete wall about two meters high. Floodlights on tall poles swept the courtyards in slow arcs. The Mexican flag hung limp over the central building. Trucks were parked in neat rows. A small motor pool, a barracks block, two administrative buildings, and toward the back, what looked like a reinforced storage structure, cinderblock with metal doors.
And on the east side, where the wall thickened and the floodlights burned brighter, stood a small annex of prefab buildings, cordoned off from the rest. Two guards in darker uniforms stood there, rifles held tighter, posture more professional.
That was where they'd taken Dmitri.
Ethan adjusted his NVGs down over his eyes and whispered, barely above a breath, "You sure it's the right place?"
Clef didn't answer right away. He tracked the scope, following the patrol car making its lazy loop inside the fence.
"Yep," he said finally. "Same truck that left the bar. Same plate. Same driver. They dumped our big Russian bear in the little box on the right."
Ethan squinted. "You can see the plate from here?"
Clef made a small scoffing sound. "I can count the guy's nose hairs from here."
He shifted, eyes narrowing. "He's pissed, by the way. The driver. Keeps throwing his hand when he talks. Probably because Dmitri broke one of his ribs."
Ethan exhaled slowly. "So we confirm. Dmitri's inside."
"Yup."
"Surrounded by regular army plus a special team."
"Yup."
"With no backup."
"Yup."
Ethan stared at the base again, quiet. "This is insane."
Clef finally took his eye off the scope and glanced at him sideways, the bottom half of his face hidden by his scarf, eyes amused. "Rookie, if you wanted sane, you shouldn't have followed me off an airplane without a parachute."
"Fair," Ethan muttered.
He reached up, tapping the side of his headset, off. No Foundation net, no SCPiNET, no Overwatch, no Nu-1 command to guide them. This wasn't official. This wasn't logged. If they died here, the Foundation would probably redact their existence and send a bouquet of flowers to no one.
He swallowed and went back to watching.
Down below, two soldiers in olive fatigues walked the outer perimeter, rifles slung casually. They weren't lax, but they weren't expecting Tier-1 weirdos in the bushes either.
A pair of guards smoked near the motor pool. Another patrol crossed near the main gate, pausing to talk to a sentry in a booth.
Ethan counted under his breath. "Outer patrol every four minutes. Inner patrol every six. Vehicle patrol every fifteen."
"Mm-hm," Clef hummed. "Two towers, east and west. No one in them, though, just lights. Cameras on the corners. Mexican model, old. We can blind them with lasers or just stay in their dead zones."
He watched for another minute.
"Good news," Clef said.
Ethan glanced over. "There's good news?"
"Yeah. No helicopter."
Ethan blinked, letting that sink in. "So no aerial chase."
"No aerial chase," Clef confirmed. "They're not expecting an external assault. They think they grabbed three idiots in a bar. They're in 'process and interrogate quietly' mode. Not 'prepare for Foundation retribution' mode."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "They will be."
"Oh, absolutely," Clef said cheerfully. "In about… forty minutes."
He went back to the scope. "We got about twenty, twenty-five guys regular. Vehicles are army-issue, boring. But-" He shifted the barrel slightly to the prefab compound. "-there. That's the fun part."
Ethan followed his line of sight.
The two guards near the prefab building were not regular infantry. Their vests were cleaner, weapons newer, helmets with mounted NVGs, knee pads, comms on the shoulder, boots polished, discipline tighter. One of them had a patch on his arm, dark-on-dark. Ethan couldn't make out the symbol, but he knew military professionalism when he saw it.
"Special forces," Ethan murmured.
"Yep. GAFE flavor," Clef said. "Good shooters. Better than the regulars. Maybe even CALMECAC-adjacent, if they got spooked enough by us."
Ethan frowned. "Think they know who you are?"
"Oh, for sure," Clef said casually. "You saw their faces at the bar. They wanted answers. They didn't grab Dmitri because he was big and Russian. They grabbed him because they wanted a hostage connected to us. They thought we'd come back."
Ethan stared at him. "So… we're doing exactly what they wanted."
"Yep."
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose under the scarf. "This is such a bad idea."
Clef's eyes crinkled like he was smiling. "That's what makes it fun."
They lay there for a while, just listening.
The night wind rustled the brush around them. Down below, guard voices rose and fell, boots clacked on concrete, a generator hummed, a radio squawked in Spanish from the gatehouse. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. A truck passed on the road beyond the base and faded away.
Ethan adjusted his sling, making sure the M4 sat tight against his chest. He could feel the weight of the sidearm on his thigh, suppressed 9mm, simple, reliable. Two spare mags on his chest rig, one on the belt. Two flashbangs, one smoke. No grenades. Clef had made a point.
"No boom toys," he'd said earlier. "We make a boom, they call friends. I don't wanna have the Mexican army, the Mexican anomalous guys, and the CIA looking at the same crater."
So it was going to be clean. Quiet. In and out.
On paper.
Ethan glanced at him again. "Your friend… wherever you got this gear… he sure none of it's traceable back to the Foundation?"
Clef didn't take his eyes off the scope. "Zero percent. He's a local. Used to run guns for a cartel, now runs guns for everyone. I did him a little favor in '03. Saved his daughter. He owes me."
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You just… have favors like that lying around?"
"I'm very likeable," Clef said.
Ethan snorted softly. "That's debatable."
Silence fell again.
After a moment, Ethan said quietly, "Doc."
"Hm?"
"What's the plan?"
"Simple," Clef said. "We go in, we get Dmitri, we leave."
Ethan closed his eyes a second. "You know that's not a plan."
"Sure it is," Clef said. "Step one: don't get seen. Step two: get big Russian. Step three: don't get shot. Step four: leave before they realize the weird doctor was here."
Ethan stared at him. "And if we do get seen?"
"Then we switch to Plan B."
"…which is?"
Clef's tone didn't change. "Kill everyone."
Ethan let his head thump gently against the dirt. "Of course."
He looked down at the base again, tracing routes in his head.
"We can't go through the front," Ethan murmured. "Gate's lit, two guards, camera, and they'll check IDs. Even with uniforms, accents will give us away."
"Mm-hm," Clef agreed.
"South wall is closest, but it's straight in view of the motor pool. If we climb, they see us. If we cut it, they hear us."
"Mm-hm."
"East side… too lit."
"Mm."
Ethan squinted at the far west side of the base, where the slope dipped and brush grew close to the wall. The fence there had more shadows, and the patrol seemed lazier.
"What about west?" he asked. "Dead ground from the tower. Only one floodlight and it's turned a little too far inward. If we go prone and crawl, we can get to the wall. But the wall's solid."
Clef made a small approving sound. "There you go. That's a plan."
He reached back and tapped his pack. "I brought two ladders."
Ethan blinked. "You brought what?"
"Collapsible ladders," Clef said, like it was obvious. "What, you think I was gonna climb a concrete wall with my bare hands? I'm getting old, rookie."
He slid the rifle to the side and unzipped the bag. Sure enough, two compact, folded aluminum ladders sat inside.
Ethan stared. "When did you even pack those?"
"When you were still whining about the bar."
Ethan sighed. "Right."
They watched a little longer.
Two soldiers walked by the west wall. Clef counted under his breath. "One… two… three… four… five…"
"Five-minute gap," Ethan said.
"Five minutes," Clef confirmed. "We can clear the wall and be in shadow in one."
"And from there?"
Clef tapped the map on his wrist mount, a simple, hand-sketched overlay he'd made from recon. "We stick to the west buildings, move behind the motor pool, don't cross the main courtyard. Then we hit the prefab area. You take left guard, I take right. Quiet."
"And Dmitri?"
Clef's eyes narrowed a little. "They won't have him tied in the open. They'll have him in a room. Probably the central prefab. We breach, we take him, we move straight back out the way we came."
"And if they move him while we're in?"
"Then we adapt."
Ethan hesitated. "Doc… they grabbed Dmitri for a reason. They want information. They want to know who we are. If we hit them… they're gonna know."
Clef finally looked away from the scope entirely and rested his chin on his arm, meeting Ethan's eyes in the dark.
"Rookie," he said quietly, "they already grabbed one of ours. We don't leave people behind. Ever. That's the difference between us and everyone else in this stupid anomalous world. So yeah, they're gonna know."
He tilted his head toward the base. "Let them. I want them scared. I want them to tell their bosses 'don't touch Foundation personnel again.'"
Ethan nodded slowly. "You think they'll listen?"
"Oh yeah," Clef said. "Because if they don't…"
He grinned beneath the scarf, eyes glinting in the dark.
"…our boss will send someone much worse than me."
Ethan didn't ask who. He knew the answer.
He took a slow, steadying breath. Heartbeat calmed. Muscles loosened. The mission snapped into place in his head: ingress, neutralize, recover, egress. Just like Site-19, just like Afghanistan, just like every other place where things could go wrong fast.
He checked his magazines. Full. He checked his suppressor. Tight. He checked the radio, even though it was on a local encrypted channel, just between him and Clef. No callsigns, no names. Just a push-to-talk and two men trying not to die.
"Doc."
"Yeah?"
"If this goes sideways…"
"It will," Clef said cheerfully.
"…and we get surrounded…"
"We will," Clef repeated, still cheerful.
"…you got a plan C?"
Clef's eyes went back to the scope. "Oh yeah."
Ethan waited.
Down below, the western patrol walked past.
Clef's voice shifted, getting sharp again. "Patrol just passed. Four minutes before they come back."
Ethan nodded, tightened his grip on the M4… then hesitated.
"Doc."
"Hm?"
"If this goes sideways… and I mean really sideways… what's the backup?" Ethan asked. "We don't have Overwatch. We don't have site support. We don't even have a damn Foundation radio net. It's just us."
Clef kept watching the base, one eye in the scope. "Yep."
Ethan frowned. "So… there's no QRF?"
"Nope."
"No MTF on standby?"
"Nope."
Ethan let out a slow breath. "So it really is just the two of us."
"Welcome to field work with Dr. Alto Clef," Clef said dryly. "Sometimes you get a support team. Sometimes you get a flying battleship. Sometimes you get a god-level reality bender. Sometimes…" He flicked the safety on his rifle. "…you get two idiots in the bushes with stolen guns."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be accurate."
They fell quiet again. The base kept breathing below them, unaware.
After a moment, Clef added, almost as an afterthought, "But don't panic. If we get spotted, we improvise. If they pin us, we break contact. If they chase us, we make them regret cardio."
Ethan huffed. "That's your plan?"
"That's always the plan. Look-" Clef finally glanced at him. "-we don't cry about support we don't have. We use what we do have. We've got darkness, we've got height, we've got surprise, and we've got the fact that they don't know how stupid we are."
Ethan blinked. "That last one's an advantage?"
"Oh, huge," Clef said. "People expect professionals. They don't expect two lunatics to climb a Mexican military base wall at midnight just to punch a Russian out of a holding cell."
Ethan couldn't help it, he laughed, low and quick. The tension leaked out a little.
"Alright," he said. "Just us, then."
"Just us," Clef confirmed.
He checked the time, then started unfolding the first ladder, metal whispering softly in the dark.
"Now," he said, eyes back on the base, tone going flat and lethal, "let's not make this a long night."
They moved.
Clef slung his rifle, grabbed the folded ladder, and started down the slope like a man walking home, not sneaking into a fortified military base. Ethan followed, every nerve taut. The smell of hot earth and diesel hung thick in the air. Crickets chirped once, then went silent as if even they knew better.
At the base of the hill, the outer fence loomed ahead, chain-link topped with coiled barbed wire. A single floodlight swung lazily across the yard beyond. They froze, letting its beam sweep past before darting forward, shadows cutting between patches of dead grass.
Clef crouched near the fence, unfolded the ladder in two silent clicks, and propped it against the metal. He looked back at Ethan and mouthed, go.
Ethan climbed fast, gloves whispering against the rungs. When he reached the top, he stopped, barbed wire, glinting faintly in the moonlight. Clef tossed him a folded blanket, old and scorched at the edges. Ethan draped it across, pressed it down, and rolled over to the other side, landing in a crouch.
Seconds later, Clef dropped beside him, soft as dust.
"First wall done," Clef murmured. "One more to go."
The inner wall was ten meters ahead, concrete, rough, patched with cracks. Between them and it, a narrow service lane ran along the motor pool. Diesel drums, stacked crates, a spotlight on a rusted tower, and two soldiers. One smoked lazily near a generator; the other paced the length of the lane, rifle slung loose on his chest.
Clef tapped Ethan's shoulder and pointed, his target, the smoker. Then he pointed at himself, the patrolling one. Ethan nodded.
Clef's fingers counted down silently. Three… two… one.
They moved together.
Ethan slipped through the shadows, the M4 cradled close. The soldier exhaled smoke, eyes half-shut, lost in his own boredom. Ethan was on him before he realized there was even movement, arm around the neck, pistol suppressed under the chin, phfft. The man's body went limp instantly. Ethan caught him, lowered him to the ground, and dragged him behind a crate.
Clef, meanwhile, walked right into the other soldier's patrol route. The man barely had time to blink before Clef grabbed the front of his vest, pulled him forward, and slammed the knife up under the chin. One short jerk, a gurgle, then silence. Clef let the body slide gently to the ground and wiped the blade on the soldier's sleeve.
He looked up at Ethan, who was staring at him.
"What?" Clef whispered. "You're supposed to practice for this kind of thing. You think I got this good on accident?"
Ethan just shook his head. "You're terrifying."
"Occupational hazard."
They hauled the bodies behind a fuel drum, checked for alarms, and crossed to the second wall.
Clef planted the ladder, steadied it, and gestured for Ethan to go.
From above, Ethan scanned quickly, no movement near the prefab units, no guards turning their heads. He climbed over, dropped silently on the other side, rifle up. Clef followed, landing with a soft grunt.
They were inside.
The air smelled sharper here, sterile metal, oil, and ozone. The floodlights cast harsh cones of white that left deep shadows between buildings. From a nearby structure, faint voices drifted, Spanish, clipped and professional.
Clef motioned left. "Motor pool path. Fewer eyes."
They crept along the side of the nearest building, sticking to the dark. Twice, they froze as soldiers walked past, once a pair with rifles, once a technician hauling crates. Each time, Clef's hand went automatically to his sidearm, but he didn't draw. Not yet.
They reached the corner of the motor pool and stopped. Ahead, twenty meters away, the prefab annex stood under bright light. Two guards at the door, armed with HK416s. No smoking, no phones, no chatter. Professionals.
"That's GAFE," Ethan whispered.
"Yup," Clef said. "The fun kind."
He checked his watch. "Two minutes till next patrol passes behind us. We move, we take them quiet, we're ghosts."
Ethan exhaled slowly, heart hammering in his chest.
"Rookie," Clef murmured, tone shifting calm. "This isn't a shooting gallery. We go clean. No noise."
"Got it."
"Remember, head's a switch. Turn it off. When you flip it back on, you can panic."
"Thanks, Doc. That's very comforting."
"Wasn't supposed to be."
Then Clef moved.
They crossed the open ground in a low crouch, boots kissing dirt, shadows stretching long under the floodlight. Ethan's lungs burned from holding his breath. The closer they got, the louder the base seemed, the hum of the generator, the faint buzz of the lights, distant footsteps.
Ten meters.
Eight.
Six.
The first guard turned slightly, heard something?
Clef was already there. The knife flashed once, buried deep into the man's throat, the hand catching the rifle before it hit the ground. Ethan lunged at the second, grabbed his vest, and slammed the silencer into the base of his skull. The body twitched, then went limp.
Silence.
Clef eased the first guard down, checked for heartbeat, none. "Clean," he whispered.
Ethan crouched by the door, checked the frame. "Locked. Magnetic."
Clef pulled a small device from his pocket, crude and scratched, a magnetic override, scavenged, maybe homemade. He pressed it to the panel. Sparks flickered. The light on the reader blinked from red to green.
"After you," he said.
Ethan pushed the door open, rifle raised.
Inside, the air was colder. Fluorescent light buzzed weakly overhead, washing the prefab corridor in pale blue. A steel door stood at the end, with a reinforced viewing slit. Through it, a voice muttered in Russian, low, angry.
Dmitri.
Ethan's jaw tightened. He glanced at Clef. The older man's eyes had gone flat, calculating.
"Ready?" Clef whispered.
Ethan nodded.
Clef smiled, small, sharp, dangerous. "Then let's bring our bear home."
Dmitri was sitting on a metal chair, wrists zip-tied to the frame, when the door slid open. His head jerked up at the sight of the two figures in masks.
For a heartbeat his muscles tensed, ready to break bones again, then he recognized Clef's ridiculous stance, rifle hanging one-handed, scarf still crooked around his neck.
"Doktor," Dmitri breathed, half disbelief, half relief. "You actually came."
Clef stepped inside like a man entering a café, not a holding cell. "Of course I came, big guy. You think I was gonna let Mexico keep my favorite vodka dispenser?"
Ethan followed, sweeping corners with his M4. "You're welcome, by the way."
Dmitri chuckled, the sound raw. "About time. Food here terrible. No vodka, no salt. They treat me like criminal."
"You are a criminal," Clef said cheerfully, cutting the zip-ties with his knife. "International, in fact. But you're our criminal, which makes it better."
Ethan moved to cover the door. "We need to move, Doc. Patrols rotate every five minutes, remember?"
"Relax," Clef said, helping Dmitri stand. "I told you, this'll be in and out."
"Last time you said that," Ethan muttered, "we started a cartel war."
"Details."
Dmitri stretched his shoulders, grimacing as blood returned to his arms. "How bad outside?"
Clef shrugged. "About twenty-five soldiers and two special-forces goons less than there used to be."
Ethan frowned. "Doc, we didn't kill that many-"
Clef winked. "Yet."
Dmitri groaned. "Always same with you. Chaos follows."
Clef grinned under his scarf. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but the sound died on his tongue.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Confident. Moving straight toward them.
All three froze.
Clef held up a hand, silence. He gestured: one person.
Ethan raised his rifle, aimed at the door. Dmitri grabbed a metal chair leg and broke it free in one hand.
The latch clicked.
The door opened.
A man stepped in, tall, mid-forties, uniform crisp and black-green, a golden serpent-and-eagle insignia stitched on his arm. His sidearm hung low, holstered, and his other hand held a folder of documents.
He looked up and stopped.
Three armed foreigners stared back.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Clef was the first to speak. "Oh," he said lightly, lowering his pistol just a hair. "Evening. You must be room service."
The officer's hand went to his gun. "¡Alto!" he barked.
Clef sighed. "Knew it."
Ethan didn't hesitate. He grabbed the officer's wrist, slammed it against the doorframe, the pistol clattering to the ground. Dmitri stepped forward and caught the man by the collar, pinning him against the wall like a rag doll. Papers scattered to the floor.
"Calm down, amigo," Clef said, stepping closer, voice suddenly low, sharp. "No one's dying if you don't scream."
The officer's breath came quick, eyes darting between the three masked men. His accent was rough when he spoke, but his English was good. "You're… the ones from the hijacking."
Clef tilted his head. "Oh, look at that. We're famous."
"You don't understand," the man said quickly. "This facility, it's not normal army. You shouldn't-"
"I noticed," Clef interrupted. "Uniform gave it away. CALMECAC, right?"
The officer froze.
Ethan's stomach dropped. "Doc…"
Clef's grin faded to a line. "Yeah," he said quietly. "That explains a lot."
The officer straightened a little, even under Dmitri's grip. "You shouldn't be here," he said. "Your presence is a violation of-"
Clef cut him off again, voice suddenly calm but cold. "Of what? The unspoken agreement that we don't step on each other's toes? You broke that when you grabbed one of mine."
Dmitri tightened his hold, the man gasped.
Ethan glanced toward the hall, pulse racing. "Doc, we've got maybe ninety seconds before someone checks this room."
Clef didn't look away from the officer. "Then let's make this quick."
He leaned in close, so only the officer could hear. "You tell your superiors that if they ever touch Foundation personnel again, anywhere, what happens next won't be quiet."
The officer's eyes flicked with recognition at the name Foundation. His lips parted to speak, but a gunshot cracked somewhere outside, followed by shouting.
Ethan cursed. "They're onto us."
Clef exhaled through his nose. "Figures."
He looked back at the officer, eyes narrowing. "We'll finish this conversation later."
Then, to Dmitri: "Sleep him."
Dmitri's fist connected once. The officer went limp.
"Alright," Clef said, stepping over him. "Rookie, door. Dmitri, you're on rear. Let's get the hell out before they decide to use tanks this time."
And just like that, the three ghosts melted back into the corridor, one unconscious officer on the floor, and the storm already rising behind them.
They moved fast.
Ethan took point, rifle up, scanning corners. Clef followed, dragging the unconscious officer by his collar for a few meters before letting him drop unceremoniously in a supply alcove. Dmitri lumbered behind, cracking his knuckles and stretching his shoulders like a man ready to break something.
The corridor bent left toward the outer gate. The emergency lights buzzed faintly overhead, one flickered, another hummed. The whole base was too quiet.
"Doc," Ethan whispered, "we're not out yet. Those two guards outside, someone's gonna-"
He didn't finish.
They turned the corner and froze.
An entire squad of GAFEA soldiers stood there, ten meters away, moving in formation. Full tactical gear, suppressed rifles, NVGs glowing faintly under their helmets. The team had been heading straight toward the prefab annex, clearly responding to the missing guards.
For a split second, both groups locked eyes.
The Mexicans saw three mens, one armed foreigner with a rifle, one with a submachine gun, one two meters tall dragging a prisoner's uniform and everything clicked at once.
Ethan's stomach dropped. "Shit-"
Clef grinned. "Showtime."
The world erupted.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The GAFEA point man fired first, muzzle flashes lighting the narrow hall. Bullets tore into the wall inches from Ethan's head. He dove sideways, rolled behind a steel crate, and returned fire with short, disciplined bursts. The suppressed rifle coughed quietly, but every hit made a man drop screaming.
Dmitri didn't even bother finding cover. He stepped forward, ripped the nearest locker door off its hinges, and hurled it like a discus. It slammed into two soldiers, knocking them sprawling. One tried to rise, Dmitri was already on him, snapping the rifle from his hands and driving a knee into his chest. Bones cracked.
Clef's MPX barked in precise, surgical shots, three rounds, two heads, one throat. He pivoted, drew his pistol with his other hand, and double-tapped another who tried to flank from the side door.
"Rookie! Left side!" Clef barked.
Ethan swung around the crate just in time to see a soldier raise a grenade launcher. "Got it!" he yelled, firing a tight three-round burst. The launcher clattered to the floor, the soldier's body dropping limp beside it.
Then, the alarm.
A blaring, metallic howl ripped through the base, red lights flashing overhead.
BWWWWWOOOOO! BWWWWWOOOOO!
"¡CONTACTO! ¡CONTACTO EN EL ANEXO!" a soldier screamed into his radio before Clef shot him through the hand.
"Too late!" Ethan shouted. "They know we're here!"
"Good," Clef said, ducking behind a doorway as a hail of 5.56 rounds shredded the wall he'd just been leaning on. "Now it's fun."
Dmitri tore a rifle off one of the fallen GAFEA, checked the mag, and opened up down the corridor. His heavy bursts echoed like thunder, shredding through plaster and armor alike. The smell of cordite filled the air, smoke curling into the flickering red light.
Ethan's earpiece crackled, the local line opening. "Doc!" he shouted over the gunfire. "We can't stay in here, they'll box us in!"
"I know!" Clef barked, firing blind down the hallway. "South door, motor pool exit, move!"
They broke contact, sprinting through the smoke and chaos. Clef lobbed a flashbang back behind them, and the hall filled with a white roar and a burst of screams.
Ethan kicked open the outer door. The night hit them, cool, alive, full of shouting soldiers and searchlights. Dozens of boots thundered across the yard as reinforcements poured from the barracks. The floodlights snapped toward them, cutting through the darkness.
"¡ALTO! ¡ALTO O DISPARAMOS!"
"Guess that means they found us," Ethan muttered, raising his rifle.
Clef just smiled under his scarf. "About damn time."
He fired first, cutting the lead spotlight in half. The bulb exploded in a shower of sparks. Dmitri followed up with a thunderous burst that dropped two silhouettes near the truck line.
The GAFEA operators scattered, taking cover behind vehicles, laying suppressive fire. Tracer rounds stitched through the air, red lines of death hissing past.
Ethan dove behind a sandbag wall, breathing hard. "We're pinned!"
Clef slid next to him, calm as ever, reloading his MPX. "Pinned is just code for 'we haven't found the fun button yet.'"
Dmitri leaned out from cover and fired another burst, sparks flying as bullets ricocheted off metal. "Many soldiers, Doktor!"
Clef looked up at the blazing siren lights and distant movement of more troops rushing in from the eastern sector.
His grin turned sharp. "Then we'd better make this loud enough for everyone to hear."
The three of them reloaded in sync, the base roaring alive around them, alarms, shouts, engines starting, boots pounding on gravel.
Ethan's heart hammered against his ribs.
They'd come for one man.
Now, they were about to fight a war.
They ran like wolves.
The base unfolded around them in a riot of light and sound, searchlights cracking beams through smoke, radios screaming in Spanish, boots pounding. Clef moved like a blade; Ethan stayed at his flank and tried to be the blade's shadow. Dmitri was a wrecking ball in human skin, pulling men off their feet, ripping rifles from hands, smashing helmets like rotten fruit. Together they were impossible to categorize: part guerilla, part circus, all violence.
They tore through the prefab cluster, smashing doors and disrupting the nervous system of the compound. Clef's MPX popped in short, clean bursts, precise, economical. His shots were statements, not pleas. When he hit flesh, that flesh went quiet. Ethan watched him work and felt his own finger steady with a small, ugly pride. The doctor's movements were elegant and dangerous, like a man dancing on a razor's edge.
"Left corridor, two at the junction!" Ethan breathed into the earpiece and his voice felt foreign in the chaos.
"Give me a second," Clef replied, calm as a surgeon. He stepped into the corridor and the world narrowed: muzzle flash, a soldier's blink of surprise, three soft pops and silence. Clef rotated and gave Ethan the smallest of nods. "Go."
Ethan sprinted, muzzle tucked, low and efficient. He worked through the doorway, cleared it, and found a small communications room. Two men were hunched over a console, fingers fumbling frantically, not because they'd been trained poorly, but because fear short-circuited training. Ethan didn't hesitate. He dove, slammed one to the floor with a palm strike that felt like someone else's fist, and snapped cuffs around wrists. The other tried to twist, Ethan broke his nose with the butt of his rifle. No mercy; no ceremony.
Dmitri chose different poetry. He grabbed an ammo crate, slammed it into a soldier's shins, then used the man like a battering ram. The soldier flew back into a concrete pillar and the sound of breaking bone was a ledger line in the song of the night. Dmitri never wasted time celebrating. He simply moved on, already hunting the next throat.
They threaded through the motor pool, skirted the transport yard where trucks idled like sleeping beasts. Tracer lines zipped overhead; a few rounds spat from the rooftops and chewed holes in metal. Men scrambled to set up a stop line. The perimeter tightened like a fist.
"South gate!" Clef hissed. "We cut across, motor pool shadow, two trucks, use them as a mask."
Ethan did the math in seconds, then they ran. He felt the thud of his boots in his chest, the taste of smoke in his mouth. A young corporal shouted orders; Clef shot his radio hand to silence, and the corporal's mouth stopped moving like a puppet with a missing string.
They reached the hangar by a hair. Inside, mechanics' benches, spare parts, and the skeletal outline of an old transport plane. The hangar was dim; tall doors yawned at the far end. They ducked behind a truck and breathed for one brutal second.
"Clear?" Dmitri asked, voice low and steady, the calm before the next storm.
"Clear enough," Clef said. "We hit the central prefab, now."
They moved in. The prefab became a maze of file cabinets, folding chairs, a whiteboard with schedules scrawled in Spanish. They found a cell door, a small, iron door with a narrow slot and a padlock already cut. Inside, the smell was cheap detergent and fear. Dmitri's eyes lit up when he saw the crimson bruise patterns on Dmitri's ribs. The Russian's face broke into a grin that was half relief and half unspent fury.
"Big man," Clef said with a clipped, private warmth.
Dmitri lunged and crashed into him. The hug looked like a strangling; two men who had no right to tenderness gripped each other until the world righted itself. Ethan's throat tightened. He watched them breathe, demand the sound of a heartbeat.
Then the hangar doors slammed shut.
Everything changed.
A drum of boots. A chorus of voices. The air dropped cold and metallic as soldiers moved into place. Flashlights cut the gloom into a thousand accusing fingers. Men in darker gear, GAFEA survivors, blocked the exits like granite. Reinforcements poured in behind them: a full company, helmets low, rifles raised, discipline hard and precise. They had been funneled. The base had a tail; the tail had snapped.
Ethan's stomach turned.
Clef's smile thinned into something that might have been a warning.
"Door's jammed," Dmitri growled, pushing his weight against the metal. It stuck.
"Of course it is," Clef said softly. He scanned the hangar with the twitchy, animal focus of a man who thirsted for problem-solving by violence. "They herded us into the big room."
A company's worth of soldiers fanned out, a ring of faces lit by torchlight. GAFEA men, still breathing hard, formed a spearhead toward the trio. Someone high in command barked a word and the ring tightened, quick and military.
Ethan realized they'd been swallowed: truck to their back, cell to their left, a dead plane's shadow to their right. Everyone in their way pointed weapons inward until the hangar was a bowl of steel and breath.
"Hands!" shouted a voice. The lead officer strode into the center, chest plate thumping, a badge glinting. His eyes flicked to the three forms in the semicircle, one small and focused, one towering like an ox, one wrapped in a scarf and annoyance. He did not smile. He could not afford to.
For a beat, the world held its breath and the only sound was the hum of the lights and a radio somewhere calling coordinates.
Clef's hand rested on the MPX, but he did not draw. He regarded the soldiers with that odd, intent calm that had unnerved men in bars and generals in command rooms. He had no intention of giving up. He had never intended to give up.
"Try to talk us down?" Ethan mouthed, half-prayer, half-order.
Clef's voice was a scalp-cold whisper that slid under the shouts. "Rookie. Remember rule one."
Ethan swallowed. "Do not get taken alive."
"Exactly." Clef flicked his eyes to the hangar doors. "And if the situation smells of funeral, remember Plan B."
The lead officer stepped closer, the area of his authority pulsating in his posture. He looked annoyed, triumphant, exhausted. He nodded to the men. "Contain them. Call command. We process."
Behind him, someone else, an NCO, younger, sweating, turned a radio and hissed into it. The hangar's perimeter drew tighter by the second. The company had them like a circled prey.
Ethan's fingers trembled on his rifle. Dmitri flexed his hands, knuckles whitening. Clef's grin returned, but it had teeth; it was a promise and a threat.
Outside, through a crack in the far door, Ethan saw the night sky bright with searchlights and the rattle of boots beyond the yard. Reinforcements had arrived for the Mexicans themselves. The base had answered.
They were surrounded.
Clef took a breath that smelled faintly of smoke and iron. He straightened, scarf sliding. The shadow under his goggles was a quiet darkness, and when he spoke, his voice carried like a blade in the cold air.
"All right," he said, smiling like a man who delighted in funerals. "Let's make them regret thinking they had us."
The soldiers tightened their grips. The officer's jaw set. Somewhere a radio clicked and someone asked for orders. The hangar held the moment like thin glass.
Then Clef blinked once, and the world changed its mind.
BOOOM!
The explosion hit like the wrath of God.
A shockwave tore through the base,?glass shattered, alarms wailed, and the hangar doors buckled inward under the force. The lights flickered violently, then died, plunging everything into darkness. For a heartbeat, there was only the ringing in their ears and the sound of falling debris.
Then came the gunfire.
An avalanche of shots erupted outside, hundreds of rifles, roaring in every direction. The sound was chaotic, uncoordinated, like an entire army firing blind. Muzzle flashes strobed through the cracks in the hangar, painting the metal walls in pulses of red and white.
"¡CONTACTO! ¡CONTACTO!" someone shouted from outside. "¡TODOS A SUS POSICIONES!"
Inside, the soldiers reacted instantly, shouting orders, slamming magazines into rifles. A dozen GAFEA raised their weapons, training them on Clef, Ethan, and Dmitri.
The emergency lights flickered once… and died completely.
The hangar drowned in black.
Through the dark, dozens of faint green halos flared to life as the soldiers switched on their NVGs. The air filled with the soft clicks of safety levers, boots shifting, shallow breaths through masks.
Ethan's pulse hammered in his throat. He gripped his rifle tighter, whispering:
"They're coming…"
Clef didn't answer. He was watching. Waiting.
Then, something shifted.
A faint static prickle rolled across the air, like electricity crawling under the skin. A whisper, almost imperceptible, rippled through the room, a wrongness, something foreign pressing down like gravity.
And then, hell began.
Without warning, the soldiers behind the GAFEA suddenly turned their rifles around and opened fire.
The first bursts shredded through the special forces' backs, ripping through armor and flesh. Screams erupted instantly, confusion exploding into chaos. The GAFEA spun around, shouting in panic-"¡ALTO! ¡ALTO, QUÉ-!" -but their own comrades kept firing, eyes wide, faces blank under the green glow of their goggles.
Ethan flinched back, eyes wide. "What the fuck-?"
Bullets tore through the air, ricocheting off crates and walls. Clef shoved Ethan behind cover, dragging Dmitri down with him as the hangar became a killing field.
In seconds, half the room was down. The smell of gunpowder mixed with blood and ozone.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the firing stopped.
Silence.
A few soldiers, those who'd fired on their own, stood shaking, rifles slipping from their hands. One of them began sobbing. Another tried to rip off his helmet.
Then, in eerie synchronization, every single one drew their sidearm.
"What are they doing?" Ethan whispered, voice trembling.
The soldiers lifted the pistols to their own temples. Some were crying. Some tried to resist, hands trembling violently, but the moment they did, another soldier would grab their wrist and force the gun upward.
The gunshots came all at once.
A dozen cracks in unison. Then silence again. Bodies dropped like marionettes cut from their strings.
Only the trio remained alive in the hangar.
The lights flickered once more, dim red emergency lights humming weakly to life.
The floor was painted with blood.
Ethan's hands shook uncontrollably. "Doc… what the hell just happened?"
Clef didn't answer. His phone had started ringing.
The sound was shrill, mechanical, cutting through the eerie quiet. He hesitated a moment, then answered.
On the other end, a voice spoke, calm, cold, almost mechanical.
"When the Black Moon howls."
Clef's expression shifted instantly. The faintest smile tugged under his scarf. "We go hunting," he replied.
Ethan froze. His eyes widened. He knew that voice.
"Commander?!" he shouted, unable to stop himself.
The voice continued, unbothered:
"Take the truck and head west. I've cleared the path. Rendezvous at the safe house, just like we planned."
Then the line went dead.
Outside, chaos raged. The explosions hadn't stopped, they'd multiplied. A second blast tore through the motor pool, flipping an armored vehicle. Tracers lit up the night sky in arcs of red and gold. Somewhere above, an attack helicopter spiraled out of control, trailing fire, before crashing into a tank near the eastern wall.
The impact shook the ground like an earthquake.
Ethan ducked instinctively, debris raining from the ceiling. He peeked through a shattered window and his breath caught.
The entire base was in chaos.
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers were firing wildly at the shadows, at each other, at things that weren't there. Some screamed orders, others screamed prayers. Searchlights swung in all directions, revealing twisted shapes of fallen men and burning vehicles.
Something, or someone, was moving through the smoke, too fast to see clearly, but wherever it went, men fell.
Clef stood slowly, reloading his MPX, eyes gleaming with recognition. "Well," he murmured, "guess our ride's here."
Dmitri looked up, expression dark. "He came."
Clef smirked. "Oh, he always comes."
Ethan swallowed hard, adrenaline burning in his veins. "Commander… what the hell is he doing out there?"
Clef chambered a round, voice low and cold: "He's sending a message."
Outside, another explosion lit the horizon, so bright it painted the world white for a heartbeat. The roar followed a second later, and through the echo of fire and thunder, one thing became clear:
The commander of Nu-1 wasn't here for stealth.
He was here to erase.
Clef slung the MPX and motioned sharply. "Move. Now."
Dmitri grabbed a fallen soldier's rifle and pushed Ethan forward. They sprinted through the hangar, boots clanging against the concrete floor. Flames were already licking up the walls, tracer rounds slicing across the open yard outside.
They reached the corner of a wrecked military truck. Clef yanked the door open, scanning the seat, clear. He climbed in without hesitation.
"Rookie, drive."
Ethan blinked. "Wait, me?"
Clef barked, "Do it!"
Ethan jumped into the driver's seat, hands shaking as he turned the key. The engine coughed once, twice, then roared to life. Dmitri climbed into the back, rifle ready, his eyes darting between every flicker of movement in the chaos beyond.
"Go, go!" Clef shouted.
The truck lurched forward, tires crushing glass and casings. As they burst out of the hangar, the world beyond hit them like a nightmare given form.
The base was gone. Not destroyed, but massacred.
Bodies sprawled across the ground, lifeless eyes reflecting the firelight. Pools of blood shimmered like molten mirrors under the flames. The once-orderly rows of vehicles were now burning husks, their ammunition detonating in random bursts that echoed through the valley. A tank's turret had been ripped off and hurled twenty meters away; the ground beneath it was cratered as if a meteor had struck.
Ethan gripped the wheel tighter, his jaw locked. "What the hell happened here?"
Clef didn't answer immediately. His gaze drifted across the carnage with an unsettling calm. "You're looking at what happens when you piss off the wrong man."
They drove on. The sound of gunfire still cracked somewhere deeper inside the base, short, controlled bursts. Too precise to be panic. Someone was still moving through the chaos, hunting.
They rounded a corner. A group of soldiers stumbled into view ahead, shouting and waving flashlights. Reinforcements. A dozen, maybe more, uniforms still clean, faces still young enough to believe they could win this.
"¡ALTO! ¡DETÉNGANSE! ¡SALGAN DEL VEHÍCULO!" one of them screamed.
Ethan slammed the brakes. Dust sprayed across the headlights. The soldiers took position instantly, rifles raised, fingers tightening on triggers.
Then the night shifted.
A blur dropped from the rooftops, fast, silent, impossible. The first soldier didn't even finish his shout before a knife slid cleanly across his throat. The next two tried to turn, but by the time their rifles came up, they were already falling.
The figure landed among them with a crash of boots on asphalt. A man, wrapped in tactical armor that seemed to drink the light. His movements were mechanical, too fast, too efficient. The black suit clung close to his body, plates shifting with a faint electric hum, red lines of energy pulsing beneath the surface like veins of molten light. The air around him seemed to bend, the heat shimmer of sheer violence.
In one hand, he held a simple combat knife, blood-slick, serrated, brutal. On his back was a matte-black assault rifle, slung diagonally across the exosuit's spine, its barrel still smoking.
He moved with surgical precision, silent and lethal. Every motion was a kill. Every step, a sentence. Within seconds, the squad was gone, cut down before they even realized death had arrived.
Clef leaned out the window as the man walked past the truck, the dim fires painting the armor in streaks of red and gold.
"Happy to see you, Commander," Clef called out, voice half-mocking.
The man didn't even turn his head. He just raised one gloved hand and flipped Clef off.
Ethan's mouth fell open. "That's him? That's the Commander?"
Clef grinned like a wolf. "Yup. That's him."
Dmitri leaned forward from the back seat, his voice a quiet rumble. "He fights alone."
Clef's eyes narrowed as the Commander reloaded his rifle with a single clean motion. "He likes to."
Pyro stepped over the bodies and disappeared back toward the heart of the base, rifle raised, knife still in hand. Gunfire erupted again almost immediately, sharp, rhythmic, deliberate. Ethan could swear he heard screaming on the wind.
Then, an explosion so massive it rattled the truck's frame. A tower collapsed in the distance, swallowed in fire. The whole horizon lit up like sunrise.
Clef nodded toward the open gate ahead. "Drive, rookie. He's buying us a way out."
Ethan pressed the pedal. The truck sped forward, bouncing over torn concrete, flames flashing past both sides. As they burst through the gate, the night swallowed them whole, leaving only smoke and chaos behind.
Through the rear window, Ethan caught one last glimpse of the base. Amid the fire and ruin, a lone silhouette stood atop a wrecked tank, rifle in hand, armor glowing faintly red through the haze.
Pyro turned his head just once, toward them, toward the dark road ahead.
Then he vanished back into the fire.
And for a long moment, none of them spoke. The truck tore through the empty countryside, headlights slicing the blackness. The base behind them burned like a second sun, and the night echoed with distant screams.
Clef broke the silence at last, voice calm, almost conversational.
"Well, rookie," he said. "Now they know who they're dealing with."
---
He woke to the sound of crackling fire.
The world swam into focus through a haze of dust and smoke. His lungs burned. Every breath tasted like iron and ash. Somewhere nearby, something was dripping, slow, rhythmic, a sound that only registered when the pain in his skull began to fade.
The GAFEA's officer pushed himself up from the floor, groaning. His vision flickered between orange and red, emergency lights dying, fire licking along the edges of a shattered doorway. His right hand instinctively reached for his sidearm. Empty holster.
The smell hit him next.
Explosives. Cordite. Blood.
And something else, something wrong.
He turned his head and froze.
The hallway was a massacre.
Bodies of his unit, his GAFEA, lay strewn across the floor, armor shredded, helmets cracked open. Black blood pooled beneath them, reflecting the glow of distant flames. He recognized faces. Men and women he'd trained with. Laughed with. Gone.
For a long moment, he couldn't move.
Then instinct took over. He crouched beside one of the corpses, hand trembling, and pried a rifle from its limp fingers. The barrel was still warm. He checked the mag. Full.
He forced himself to stand, steadying his breath.
The air hummed with distant gunfire. Short bursts. Controlled. Surgical. Not chaos, precision.
He crept down the hall, boots crunching on glass. The further he went, the more the smoke thickened until it felt like walking through a dream. The lights flickered once… twice… then died completely, leaving only the heartbeat of the fire beyond the walls.
When he pushed open the exit door, the night met him like the mouth of hell.
The base was burning.
Flames devoured the barracks. Trucks smoldered in the motor pool, their fuel tanks cooking off in muffled pops. The air was alive with embers and the metallic tang of blood. What had once been an orderly military installation was now nothing but ruin.
The officer staggered forward, blinking through the heat distortion. Bodies lay everywhere, dozens, maybe hundreds, soldiers, technicians, even the special forces who'd been his pride. Every single one of them dead.
And then… movement.
At the center of the base, framed by the inferno, stood a single man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, clad in an armored exosuit that seemed to drink the light. Plates of black metal shifted along his frame, faint lines of crimson energy pulsing beneath them like molten veins. The flames licked at his armor, crawling across his shoulders and helmet, but he didn't burn. He didn't even flinch.
In his right hand, he held a combat knife, its blade drenched in blood. In his left, a rifle hung loosely, still smoking.
At his feet knelt one of the surviving soldiers, trembling, crying, hands clasped together as if praying.
The black-armored man said nothing at first. He simply stood there, the fire swirling around him, heat waves distorting his silhouette until he looked less like a human and more like something carved out of the nightmare itself.
Then, slowly, he raised the knife.
The officer froze where he stood, unable to move, unable even to breathe.
A single motion, clean, deliberate. The knife flashed downward.
The soldier's body hit the ground a second later.
The armored figure didn't look up. Didn't acknowledge the watching eyes. Only his voice came, deep, metallic, carrying across the roar of the fire like a verdict from somewhere beyond the world.
"This is a warning. There will be no next time."
And before the officer could even process the words, the figure stepped back into the flames.
The fire swallowed him whole, and he was gone.
The officer stood frozen in the burning yard, rifle trembling in his hands, the heat searing his face, heart hammering in his chest. The world had fallen silent except for the whisper of fire eating everything it touched.
Somewhere behind him, the metal skeleton of the base groaned and collapsed.
He realized he was the only one left alive.
And for the first time in his career, the soldier of CALMECAC understood what true fear felt like.