Page 4 of Remade (Hillcroft Group #3)

CHAPTER 3

October 2nd, 2024

Bo Beckett

J ust a little while longer.

We’d moved up our positions, so we were waiting along the tree line and, still, nothing. No sign of movement. Not even a light from the driveway down below.

We’d had two drones flying down there to provide footage—while remaining undetected—and no reaction from anyone inside.

The driveway reminded me of a valet zone in front of a hotel, without the decor. No revolving door either, but Coach had been right. We wouldn’t struggle much to get in.

My main question was if anybody was home.

My second question, while less realistic, held me back.

I took a drag from my smoke and stared out into the darkness.

The clock was ticking.

My men were probably wondering why I was stalling.

It’d been dark for over an hour.

I went over it in my head repeatedly. We’d detected no heat signatures, no movement, our spyfinder hadn’t located any hidden cameras, and…

I glanced over my shoulder when I heard steps approaching, and it was Ryan lighting up his own smoke.

“Are you wondering about the holdup?” I asked.

He shook his head and blew out some smoke. “No. Because I remember the first time we worked together.”

I let out a heavy breath. Of course he fucking got it. He’d been there. Looking out over this wide-open space pulled me right back there, only with much less green grass and way more sandy gray desert.

Aleppo.

“I know it’s unrealistic,” I hedged.

He shrugged. “But still plausible.”

Yeah.

Almost eight years had passed since we’d ended up in Syria together with four other operators, and it had been batshit crazy. That assignment had stayed with me; I remembered it like it was yesterday.

Twelve families with young children had run across an open field toward trucks that were supposed to take them over the border into Turkey.

They’d never seen the mines.

Most of them had died.

It’d been the first time I’d legit seen limbs flying through the air.

It’d also been the first time I’d killed someone solely to end their suffering.

I didn’t know why the smell of burned hair had lingered the most in my nostrils, but it was the smell I associated with this little girl who’d lost both her arms and one leg in the explosion. She’d been around six or seven. Big brown eyes. She’d been the closest—the only one we’d been able to approach without risking setting off more mines. She’d peered up at me in the destruction. Blood fucking everywhere. Dust and debris. Torn clothes. Not a single tear or scream. She’d been in shock; those big eyes had stared into my goddamn soul and wrenched something out.

I took another pull from my smoke and realized I’d forgotten to tell Leighton probably the biggest pain from what we did. I was much like him—I didn’t give two shits when I killed a target I knew had done some fucked-up things. Pulling that trigger was about as difficult as changing batteries in the TV remote.

But seeing young children bleed out? Seeing drugged teenagers crawl out of cages they’d been held captive in by human traffickers? Witnessing a frantic mother search for her baby whom the father had sold off?

I turned to Ryan. “I wanna get Hyatt down here. We don’t exactly have a bomb technician on staff, but he’s the best we’ve got. He used a two-drone system to map out and detect land mines in Afghanistan right before we pulled out of there.”

He inclined his head. “Let’s do it. I’d rather wait a few hours extra than…”

Yeah. Because we couldn’t be sure.

Hyatt arrived at our previous campsite on foot two hours later, after leaving his truck at a safe distance. He had an assistant with him, none other than junior operator Wilde, and it was good to see her. She’d graduated this summer and was getting ready for her first overseas assignment.

Those drones were much larger, plus Hyatt had other equipment too, so the Juniors and Crew hurried over to assist.

“Remember the good old days when I just flew operators in and out of combat zones?” Hyatt muttered.

“Don’t pretend you don’t get off on this,” Coach stated, side-eyeing Wilde. “You treat these drones like they’re your children.”

Yeah, and let’s not forget the fucking happy dance he did last year when Quinlan announced they were investing two hundred million in our drone defense.

“Can’t a man complain in peace?” Hyatt bitched.

“Depends. Did you bring the supplies I asked for?” Coach wondered.

“Yeah, they’re—” He stopped and looked around, and then he must’ve spotted what he was searching for with Crew. He was carrying a duffel. “There we go.”

Coach jogged over to accept it, and that gave us a job.

We couldn’t set our next plan in motion with the ultra-low lighting we’d clipped on our helmets, but without a better campsite, we didn’t dare use stronger lights. We weren’t that far away from the bunker.

Coach, Ryan, Crew, and I made quick work of getting the tent up, and Hudson and Junior attached the walls.

That felt better.

Now we could get to work.

I didn’t understand much of the tech Hyatt worked with, but I’d witnessed enough demining in my days. Aside from the drones, he had a device that needed to be dug into the ground. From there, it would send out pulses through the soil to detect where mines could be, and I honestly didn’t know what I hoped for.

If we found explosives, we’d know their strategy. While flawed as fuck, I’d understand that they were relying on the mines to take care of enemy forces. Except, of course, there were no mines on the road itself. But maybe they assumed an enemy would sneak up away from the road. Far from foolproof, but neither was this crew.

If we didn’t find anything…I’d have no choice but to send my operators down there and just hope our targets were stupid enough.

Technically, only two of them had to be stupid. The driver and the passenger of the van, both of whom were dead and waiting for someone to ship them home to their mothers.

The rest of them, though? Six men had emerged when Coach and Leighton had defended their position by the van, followed by two vehicles on their way up. Crew had arrived on the scene and taken care of four of the men. The rest, vehicles included, had retreated once our guys were in the forest.

According to Coach, the vehicles had turned around swiftly, as if someone had summoned them back with a command one didn’t disobey.

Other than that… They could obviously not get into contact with the other crew, since we’d taken care of them this morning. They knew something was wrong; that was for sure.

The Feds hadn’t reported anything weird at the house, where they’d kept their workers.

Hyatt, Wilde, and Hudson walked off with their equipment after a while, to get closer to the tree line, so I stepped outside the tent and spotted Coach standing by himself with a pensive look on his face.

I needed his thoughts.

“Hey.” I reached him. “What’re you thinkin’?”

“That we won’t find anything,” he said. “You don’t believe we will either.”

I felt my forehead crease, and I widened my arms. “Then what? There’s gotta be something , man. They can’t seriously be this stupid?—”

“But they can , Bo,” he replied pointedly. “How many operations like this have we busted over the years? How many dumbfuck foot soldiers go runnin’ to the boss when they can’t handle the heat?”

I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face.

“My bet?” he went on. “The driver panicked when Watts and I threw ourselves in the van. He didn’t know what to do, so he drove straight to the person who gives him orders. I’m not sayin’ it’s smart. But that’s what I believe.”

I let my hands fall again, and I heaved a breath. “In that case, we still have a problem,” I said tiredly. “Presuming they haven’t already escaped via tunnels, they’re waiting with…fuck, I don’t know, some black-market RPGs to take down the first and second line of defense. I don’t see any other way they can protect themselves.”

“I don’t either. I think you’re dead-on. It’s gonna be a shitshow.”

A bloody one.

And I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t turning anyone into cannon fodder.

“We need a new strategy,” I said.

Back to the drawing board.

Once the tent was occupied by Hyatt and his laptops, Coach and I remained outside to discuss our options. Waiting them out seemed like the safest option, but it meant we could be stuck here for days. Then again, our only other option was to come in heavy and blow up the entrance, which… We didn’t fucking know. If half the bunker collapsed, this would turn into a search- and-not-rescue mission real quick, and we’d have no idea if any innocents were killed in the process.

I took a breath and—hold up. I glanced around us. “How come it smells like coffee here?”

I could kill for a strong cup right now.

A certain recruit emerged from the other side of the tent with two mugs and a quick smile. “I figured you needed it. It’s not very hot—I used the heaters from the MREs.”

As we’d all done so many times in the past.

“All the fuckin’ brownie points,” Coach muttered and accepted his mug.

“Yeah—thanks, pup. Just what I needed.” I took a swig of the lukewarm coffee, and it was a hard swallow. Bitter as fuck, strong as hell, downright nasty, and fucking perfect.

What it lacked in flavor, it made up for with an extra boost of caffeine.

Leighton nodded once, then walked away again.

I couldn’t wait till all this was over. My body screamed to be wrapped around his for another long night of peaceful sleep.

The fucking helped too. I wasn’t one to throw out superlatives or exaggerate a bunch, but goddamn. Easily the best sex I’d ever had.

“Guys? We have something,” I heard Hyatt say.

Coach and I exchanged a look before we stalked into the tent, and Hyatt stepped away from one of the two laptops and pointed at the screen. This was live footage, grainy but still good.

“That doesn’t look like…”

“It’s not a mine,” Hyatt confirmed. “It’s a vent.”

Holy shit.

I stepped closer and eyed the screen. What in the fuckin’… It was in the grass. Well, it was installed into a block of concrete, but it was in the grass. Hyatt brought the drone closer, and I inspected the domed cover atop the vent. To keep water out? But it couldn’t be enough. Even if it prevented rain from falling straight down, the slightest flooding would send water gushing in. They’d obviously prioritized keeping the vent hidden in the grass over ensuring no moisture got in.

“How big is that?” Coach asked. “Twelve, thirteen inches?”

Hyatt hummed. “Maybe more like ten.”

“What the fuck are youse talking about in hea’?” Crew poked his head in. “That sounds painful.”

Coach pointed. “Get the fuck out.”

My mouth twitched, and I refocused on the screen. “What can we expect here? A filter of some sort?”

“And a protective cover, like a net or whatever,” Hyatt said. “Either way, they’re easily removed. We should be able to get a camera down there. Just to get a look at the layout in that back room.”

More than that…

Coach and I glanced at each other, and I was positive we were thinking the same thing.

Stun grenades and riot control agents—we could smoke ’em out.

This was the break we needed.

At almost three in the fucking morning, we were finally ready to get this over with. Our perimeter watch unit was exhausted, I was exhausted, everyone was exhausted. But hopped up on shitty coffee and the need to get out of here. And, frankly, excitement. At least from me. Hyatt had come through. We had a live feed capturing some activity down in the bunker. Just like the blueprints had shown, it was one room after another, and the vent was in the far back. Wide doorways, open all the way through. Three men had been captured on film, closer toward the entrance. Just quick flashes of them walking by.

“Charlie, Delta—forward,” I ordered quietly, adjusting my headset. Much more comfortable than the earpieces that didn’t cancel any outside noise whatsoever. My eardrums might survive the night.

The rest of us waited in the cover of the trees, right by the dirt road.

Leighton gave me a quick glance, an even quicker smile, and he was off.

You got this, pup.

They crouched low and ran across the wide lawn toward the vent on the other short-end of the bunker. Nothing whatsoever was visible to the eye. Just moonlit grass. And the driveway.

Our approach would look a little different from previously planned, and I was happier with these changes. Charlie and Delta would drop the stun grenades and riot control agents, and then they’d meet up with the rest of us, with Charlie returning first.

We had to be ready for anything. Even if the combo of ear-deafening explosions, thick smoke, and tear gas caused mayhem down there, they could recover quickly and retaliate.

Slater signaled with his flashlight that they were in position, so I gestured for my guys to follow me.

I stayed low too, and we sprinted toward the driveway.

It was vital that we could take down the two cameras near the entrance right as the stun grenades were dropped. We needed those extra few seconds.

My mind sank into that familiar place, where I was as sharp as I was calm. Sometimes, when life had gotten too rough or…I simply didn’t wanna deal with shit, I’d taken on extra assignments just to feel that peace again.

It also helped knowing there were no mines.

Coach and I snuck as close as we could, keeping Crew behind us. The driveway had a curve to it, so we could move farther down than Quinn and Hudson on the other side of the road.

Quinn signaled to me that he couldn’t move farther without risking detection by their surveillance?—

“Delta here. Stun grenades ready to drop. Over,” Slater reported.

A razor-sharp bolt of adrenaline shot through me, and I took a steadying breath. “Copy that, Delta. Bravo and Charlie, get ready. Delta, you’re a go for the drop. Over.”

Quinn lifted his carbine, and then the whole area shook with a muted, thundering explosion from below. Quinn didn’t waste a second. He took a couple steps down the hill and immediately shot down the first camera.

“Charlie, get back here,” I commanded, moving forward too. “Delta, drop the agents, then get here.”

“Copy, dropping agents,” Slater replied. “We’re on our way.”

Quinn took care of the last camera, and then Coach, Crew, and I rushed forward and ran between two of the cars to reach the doors. Crew and I aimed at the hinges and fired several quick rounds, after which Coach snuck forward to open one of the doors. We stayed back just a bit, in case they had something ready to go off.

The first thing we heard was screaming and yelling, several men’s voices.

Quinn and I carefully peered inside, and then we bolted into action. There were two fucking RPGs just inside their entry area, and we shot the men scrambling to use them.

“Go, go, go, go!” I took the lead, registering concrete all over the fucking place. Floors, walls, ceiling, no furniture whatsoever yet, dim lighting, funky smell. Chemicals too. Boxes upon boxes lined the wall. Four men hurtled out from the next room, and Crew and I shot them in the forehead. “Delta, stay near the entrance. Bravo and Charlie, follow us.”

A choir of “Wilco” and “Copy” rang out.

“Smoke limited to the far back for now,” Coach reported. “Don’t go near it.”

The second room was empty, aside from more boxes, so we hurried through it. We could hear more screaming from the back.

I sucked in a breath and flew up against the nearest wall as several shots exploded through the air, and I could feel some of them hitting the other side of the wall.

“Enemy’s regrouped in the next room,” I said.

How long could they last there? The thick smoke was billowing forward right now.

I ducked down and peered out fast, and I fired three shots at a guy in the next doorway. He went down with a choked cry, causing a few others to yell out in German. I’d heard Arabic and American English too.

“Perimeter watch, Wilson here—we’ve got three vehicles comin’ in quick.”

“Motherfucker,” I cursed. So this was the plan all along? They had backup waiting outside the forest, and now they wanted us surrounded?

“Hold for orders,” I growled. With that, I pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin, and threw it into the next room. “Grenade!” I turned away from the doorway and listened to the screams right before the explosion thundered through. “New orders! Delta and Hudson from Bravo, stay behind and shoot anythin’ that moves! You can communicate on line two. Touch base every sixty seconds. Charlie and Quinn from Bravo, you’re with Alpha. Move out, move out!” I made sure to run last, pushing Crew ahead of me, and Hudson snuck by with Slater and Green. “Perimeter watch, keep a head count—we’re not letting them get away!”

On our way out, I ended up with Leighton in front of me, and I made a vow to keep him within reach. We had no fucking clue what we were walking into, and I wasn’t having any casualties tonight.

“Stay low when you run up,” I commanded. “Perimeter watch, update on distance?”

“They’re reaching the clearing now, sir,” Wilson reported. “Two sedans, one van—at least two people in each of the sedans.”

I was more curious about the van.

I signaled for Quinn to get into position and told him to take out the tires, and I followed suit as the next best option with Hudson staying back in the bunker.

I lay down on my stomach next to Quinn, and I peered through the scope.

The problem was the van from earlier today. It blocked the path.

“Quinn, you take left, I go right.”

“Copy.”

“Coach, reach out to Hyatt,” I murmured. “I want heat signatures so we don’t lose any of them in the forest.”

“Copy,” he responded.

Finally.

The two sedans appeared on either side of the van at the same time, and I eased my finger over the trigger.

A little closer, you motherfucker.

I exhaled.

Quinn and I fired at the same time, and the front tires were no problem. And when the cars skidded along the grass, we managed to get a third tire too.

“Reload,” he said, releasing the mag and attaching a new one in a second. No fucking exaggeration either.

“We have movement,” I declared. Before anyone could emerge from the two sedans, we saw people coming from farther away, presumably the van. “Charlie, previous orders apply. Fire when ready.”

Slater checked in to say they had few signs of life in the bunker, but they were gonna do a sweep when the smoke cleared.

Quinn cursed just as I eased up and sat back on my heels, and I couldn’t fucking believe what I was seeing.

“Perimeter watch, how big is that fucking clown car?” I snapped. I was counting nine targets— “What’s that on their backs? Jesus Christ, are those flamethrowers?” I let out a growl and switched so I could speak to Slater again. “Negative, Delta, we need you sooner. Throw another grenade down there for all I care. Then get up here.”

Over the next few minutes, the world around me ceased to exist. My mind cleared, and all I could do was register what happened and act accordingly. We needed more room to move and therefore split into pairs instead. I didn’t know if the three men with flamethrowers planned to burn evidence or just cause destruction, but they were setting the whole fucking lawn on fire. They made it damn difficult for us to keep track of everybody too, but we were counting at least fourteen men, including the ones from the sedans—wait. Make that thirteen men. Coach got one.

They carried a range of rifles and handguns, and they weren’t afraid to waste rounds by shooting straight up into the air.

“Take ’em out!” Coach roared. He ran off with Max, while I signaled for Finlay and Junior to veer west.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse, Hyatt reported heat signatures all over the forest, at least twenty heads, and they were all hurrying toward us.

Did they know about Hyatt? Start a bunch of fires and his equipment would become useless…

Flames climbed higher and higher way back, and I ordered our perimeter watch out of there. We all had the same orders now. Work in pairs, shoot to kill, don’t shoot over the flames. We needed to see our targets so we didn’t mistake a friendly for a foe. But those flames—they were setting fire to the trees. They wouldn’t be that high from just a blazing lawn.

“How long till the fire department gets here?” someone asked over the comms. Sounded like Junior. “Someone in the area’s gonna call 9-1-1.”

“I’ll handle it,” Coach said. “I’ll be back in two. Out.”

I took aim and fired at a guy before he could lift his rifle.

Leighton grabbed my arm and pointed east. “They need backup.”

Fuck.

Coach and Max were surrounded by fire and enemies some fifty yards away, so Leighton and I took off in a sprint.

“Some of these fuckers only brought knives,” Crew chuckled darkly over the comms. “Oh, you’re a coked-up son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

Shots kept cracking through the air, and I gnashed my teeth and told myself I’d just slow us down if I got too worried about Leighton. He was a capable young man. And we didn’t have a fucking choice anymore. No place was safe.

We jumped over a strip of low flames, the smoke way more unpleasant than the fire itself. The fumes were gonna affect us sooner rather than later.

At close range, I pulled out my gun and shot the first guy I saw, and Leighton wasn’t far behind.

“Max!” I snapped.

“It jammed!” he spat back. Short explanation for why he’d thrown his carbine on the ground. And a beat later, he charged at a beefy guy with a combat knife, and I ordered Leighton to assist.

Why wasn’t Coach aiming—oh fuck. He’d been hit in his right shoulder.

Rage tore through me, and I hurried toward him. “Why didn’t you fucking tell us, Coach?”

“I got it—” He rammed into a guy with his shoulder first, grabbed his boot knife, and stabbed the target in the stomach. “Covered,” he panted.

Right then and there, maybe, but three men were coming in fast.

I shot the guy Coach had stabbed, then aimed at?—

“ Argh —” Son of a whore! I bent over and clutched my arm as searing pain spread throughout me. Ah, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me! Wasn’t the first time I’d been shot—wouldn’t be the last—but I’d never get used to that intense, mind-numbing, overwhelmingly sharp pain that sent ripples of fire from the wound. Fuck fire. It was lava. Lava and a…a…million wasps and fire ants. And jam a rusty nail in there too.

The air was sucked out of my lungs, and my only allies were rage and adrenaline.

I pushed past it. Or I tried. My aim was shit, but I could fight.

This was why I’d never hold it against Coach for not speaking up about getting injured. So that I didn’t have to either. Someone would fuck things up and drag me off the field.

A scrawny motherfucker came at me with a knife, at the same time as something was happening across the clearing. Everybody was shouting over one another on the comms, and combined with the rapid gunfire, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening.

Time ceased to exist. Life was a series of labored breaths and registered movements in the flames.

The guy looked so determined, but he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. When he lurched forward and tried to stab me, I grabbed on to his arm, twisted it, and stole the knife. He cried out, and I jammed the knife into his neck.

Heart pounding, flames raging, sweat pouring, eyes stinging from the smoke, I ran over to help Leighton fight off a man twice his size. I grabbed my gun with my left hand and pressed it against his ribs, then squeezed the trigger.

“Oh fuck,” Leighton panted.

I swallowed dryly and failed to fix my stare on anything. The edges of my vision became darker and blurry.

“Are you okay?” he coughed. “We gotta get outta here.”

I nodded once. At what, I wasn’t sure. I blinked and struggled to see past the flames and moving shadows. Coach and Max—I heard them in the distance, but they weren’t with us anymore. The flames were retreating after burning through the grass, all while they raged high in other places. I coughed too.

“Over there.” Leighton pointed somewhere. “I think Crew needs help. Come on.”

Christ. I coughed again and followed him across the torched grass that sizzled and rustled underneath my boots. Embers soared skyward, mingling with the smoke. But a second later, the embers became blurry and blended in with the darkness.

You’ve been hurt. Slow the fuck down.

My arm was…all right. I had time. But there was something else. The pain came at me in fragments, almost like in a dream where you only remembered flashes afterward. One second, nothing. The next second, excruciating pain in my leg.

“There can’t be that many left!” Leighton called over his shoulder. “Can you reach out to Hyatt? My headset isn’t working.”

Yeah, I’d get right on that.

Goddamn, I was tired.