Bones looked skyward, just in time for a rotund, rogue raindrop to thwap of the lens of his Oakleys.

“Dammit,” he said, taking them off and looking for a clean part of his shirt suitable to use as a chamois.

Val replied without looking, in his custom gruff-voiced, monosyllabic way, “Yeah. Sucks. Keep on.”

“Roger that.” Bones put his sunglasses back on and flipped his ball cap back around so the brim would keep the rain off them.

The two men put their packs back on and continued north east, uphill at a quad-burning eight percent grade, through the thick underbrush. They only packed what they couldn’t craft, but their full load-out was still upwards of thirty pounds each. They were used to completing entire CrossFit WODs with plate carriers that weighed nearly as much, but this was always different; It wasn’t the weight of the gears as much as the slow, boa-like constriction of it pressing down on them—on their torsos, shoulders, lungs—slowly, over the hours and hours it could take to reach their destination.

“Spector 1, Spector 4,” a quiet voice said through their earpieces.

“Go,” Val said, not stopping.

“Eyes on three tangos, south-southeast of your location. Looks like a patrol.”

“Roger that. Verdict?”

“I think we can skirt past them, no prob.”

“Do it. Head toward us, we’ll meet at OP-2.”

“Copy.”

Bones, on instinct, tapped the mag on his .300 SBR, ensuring it was properly seated. The two men wordlessly continued the climb, as silent as any forest dwelling animals, and just as at home on the damp, mist-shrouded mountainside.

Bones let his support hand drop from his rifle to adjust his IFAK thigh-rig (why did they have a tendency to pinch areas he didn’t want pinched?). He looked uphill, still unable to get a glimpse of the top, but he felt they must be close. Distances always looked closer on paper. Even after so many missions in so many parts of the world conducted on so many varied terrains under so many different circumstances, he still remained somehow optimistic about how long it would take to get from A to B on foot.

It always took longer.

It was full-on raining now, which meant the ground would start to soften, footholds become slippery.

It would take longer.

Val popped up a closed fist and Bones reflexively turned, dropped to one knee, back-to-back with his partner, covering their six. “Whadda you got?” he whispered.

“Two tangos, my one o’clock, just past that fallen tree.”

“Thoughts?”

Silently, Val flipped over a Velcro arm sleeve to reveal a topographical map. “Danger-close to the OP.”

“Roger that. You take the big one,” Bones said with a wink, knowing that it was always the same: He took the right, Val the left, matching their dominant hands.

“Spector 4, two tangos on our loc. We need to clear.”

“Roger that. Support?”

“Negative. Hold.”

“Roger that.”

Wordlessly, Val and Bones advanced toward where the former had glimpsed the two men on foot patrol. In a matter of seconds, they each had their targets sighted. Val keyed his mic three times, the sign that they were to fire in three, two…

To the uninitiated, it sounded like someone dropped a phone book on a table. The subsonic rounds passed through the short barrels—explosive gasses bouncing around inside of their attached suppressors, hiding the flash, dampening the bang. The first man saw his compatriots neck open in a bloody splatter, just before his own lungs and heart stopped working.

A woodpecker started to tap-tap-tap for its lunch somewhere in the distance.

“Spector 4, threat neutralized. Head our way.”

“Copy.”

The OP was better than anticipated, the satellite images not accounting for a few perfectly placed boulders courtesy of a recent rock slide. From their vantage point, the four operators could each find natural cover and concealment, with an unrestricted view of the compound below. Bones had learned from hard-fought experience to take wins when he got them.

“Yo, snagged the back of my calf on a branch,” Cricket said, quietly dropping her pack next to Bones.

“I got you.” Bones, living up to his Star Trek-inspired nickname, rendered some minor first aid, patching up the gash. “You’ll live.”

The four found their respective observation spots and waited. If the intel was correct, the HVT would be on-site by one that morning. But intel was never exactly correct, or even guaranteed to be correct at all, so they were in for a potentially long night.

Sun down, Val told Cricket and Starbucks to get some shuteye, that he and Bones would take the first watch.

Bones flipped down his night vision goggles and watched as the various tangos milled about. Strange thing, this. He couldn’t help, as he observed them, to start to see personalities, differences. The way one man might stand, another’s unique gait. He could tell who was in charge, who was brand new. He could even tell, roughly, if a conversation was about work or just bullshitting by the way the participants moved, looked at each other, gestured.

The baddies were supposed to be vigilant, on guard for threats, ready to fight. That was the double-edged sword of distant, well-hidden bases: it gave them a false sense of security, made them lazy. It was that, plus the element of surprise, that usually led to a four-person team successfully completing missions against groups five or six times larger.

Bones said a silent prayer that this would be another one of those times.

As he contemplated the next few critical moments of his ever-risky life, he caught a glimpse of an off-road vehicle navigating its way up the path to the north west of the compound.

“Yo.”

“I see it.”

Val used his foot to gently tap Cricket’s foot, waking her up. She, in turn, alerted Starbucks. The four were back on their weapons in an instant, prepped, ready.

The vehicle slowed, then stopped. Four more tangos exited, words were exchanged. Convinced things were safe, the HVT got out of the back of the vehicle, shook hands with one of the bad guys, and started to walk toward the building.

Flashes of light filled the sky.

A peal of thunder, then another, echoed through the mountains.

Bones looked down scope, as Val keyed his mic three times.