Chapter 19 - The fallen commander
The lead operator retreated two paces, raising his suppressed weapon toward the center of the ring. "Do not move, mechanic! Hands where I can see them, or the girl gets ventilated!"
From the dark corner near the foundation wall, a sudden roar shattered the tactical silence. Travis, fueled by pure adrenaline and the desperate urge to redeem his shattered pride, surged forward despite his broken ribs. He hurled a forty-pound cast-iron kettlebell across the short distance with the force of an enraged heavyweight. The iron projectile smashed directly into the operative’s raised forearm, splintering the weapon’s polymer stock and knocking the carbine spinning across the mats.
"Not in my town!" Travis bellowed, lunging with a desperate haymaker that caught the operative along the edge of his tactical helmet.
The impact spun the intruder off balance, but the operator was seasoned. He deflected Travis’s follow-up strike with an elbow parry and drove a reinforced combat boot into Travis’s injured ribs. Travis crumpled to his knees with a choked groan of agony, spitting blood onto the blue canvas.
Before the operative could draw his sidearm to finish Travis, Marcus closed the distance. There was no hesitation, no theatrical stance, and no wasted motion. Marcus caught the operative’s wrist mid-draw, twisting the joint backward with a sickening snap that tore the ligaments cleanly. The operative opened his mouth to scream, but Marcus stepped inside his guard, driving an open palm into the man’s sternum. The shockwave stopped the man’s breath entirely, lifting his boots two inches off the ground before dropping him like a sack of wet sand.
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Marcus knelt, tore the night-vision goggles from the man’s face, and pinned his throat to the mat with a single heavy forearm. "Who sent you to my gym?"
The operative coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. "It’s already... over, Marcus. Look out the front... window."
