Check out this installment of the thrilling chapters series, where we dive right in the middle of the action for a fun excerpt from one of my books.
This sample is from SNOW BLIND and it stars Layne Parrish, in an “interlude” flashback scene to part of an infamous operation…
It’s about a raid that doesn’t go as planned.
***
Layne stands outside the door to the warehouse, the wet London ocean air kissing the exposed flesh of his arms. Oleg hovers next to him, and Alicia kneels, unzipping a backpack on the ground. She withdraws a smaller pouch from inside the pack. Layne catches only a glimpse of the items as she removes and inventories each one. Wires, plastic explosives, detonators. She works quickly and cleanly, part of what makes her so damned effective at her job.
She notices him noticing, and flashes a broad smile at him. The pure joy on her face makes him feel a stab of guilt. Daphne will fire her after this operation. Maybe as soon as later on tonight. Of course, Alicia is talented and ruthless and ambitious. Another agency will snap her up in a heartbeat. But still, he feels guilty knowing her future since she has no idea. Part of him knows what will happen to her is not right.
Also, that she won’t be happy about being cut from the team. She might lash out.
He’s seen her ugly side before.
“If this goes well,” she whispers, “you’re going to buy me two beers for jilting me yesterday at Salty Wench.”
“I can do that.”
Oleg flashes his eyes at them and drags a finger across his throat. Alicia offers an apologetic shrug and finishes removing the items she needs from the pack. She gives the two men present a small salute and then disappears into the night. As she dashes around the side of the warehouse, Layne watches her go. Her job is to provide demolitions at the other end of the building. The main distraction, and the most dangerous role on the team.
A full minute passes with nothing but radio silence. Layne listens to the sounds of the city. The vehicle traffic, the pedestrians, the general buzz, the echoing sound of music drifting across the water, from a far-off pub somewhere. Maybe playing on a covered patio to Londoners in boots and rain slickers.
Oleg slowly zips up his jacket and nods at the door lock. “Any second now,” he whispers.
Something isn’t right about this. The hairs on the back of Layne’s neck stand tall, and it isn’t because of the damp air. Something bad is going to happen on the other side of those warehouse walls.
Oleg’s walkie-talkie chirps twice, and then he lifts his fingers in the air, signaling time to go. Somewhere on the other end of the warehouse, an explosion rumbles. A brief light brightens up the darkness.
“Now,” Oleg says, lowering his AR-15.
Layne kicks in the warehouse door and sprints inside. Bullets whizz past his ears, but the smoke from the exterior explosion has filled the interior of the room. Harry’s heat map analysis suggested all the bad guys will be at the northern side of the warehouse, so Layne isn’t too worried about getting shot. Maybe they heard the door and can pinpoint him, but more likely, they’re flying blind.
He lays down ground fire while Oleg skirts around the edge of the warehouse. Layne’s AR spits bullets for a full three seconds until the magazine clicks empty.
According to the plan, Alicia should’ve waited until Layne finished setting suppressing fire before entering. Hopefully, he didn’t just cut her down, too. He doesn’t think he has. The three of them have rehearsed this invasion scenario dozens of times, and they’ve conducted live-fire variations in the field in almost as many iterations.
A second later, Layne notes a headlamp streaming through the smoke. Alicia. She fires off a few rounds from her direction, as more of a directional calling card than an actual attempt to kill the hostiles.
Layne pops in a fresh magazine while he edges closer to her. They’ve also practiced this crossfire maneuver dozens, or maybe hundreds of times. It’s all second nature, and Layne doesn’t even have to think about it.
But something feels wrong tonight.
Layne can’t shake the feeling. His next burst of gunfire returns some shouts and howls, so Layne knows he’s hitting his targets. Still not sure where they are or how many he’s facing, the fact that he hasn’t been sliced in two by a hail of bullets is a good sign their numbers are low.
As the smoke dies down, Layne can view along the warehouse interior stacks of pallets, some cages, and a cluster of armed men all hiding behind a forklift in the southeast corner. They’ve chosen to band together instead of fanning out. Interesting. Layne’s not sure if this is preferable or a bad sign. Depends on what they do next.
“There!” Layne says, flicking his fingers in that direction.
Oleg maneuvers around a pallet, putting it between himself and the hostiles. It might absorb bullets, it might not.
“I’ve got this,” Alicia says, strafing in the opposite direction.
Layne charges directly ahead, keeping his body low, squeezing the AR’s trigger often enough to keep them pinned behind that forklift. He has one other spare mag, and it’s in his back pocket. Better to conserve the current one and not have to reach for it.
After a few seconds, he and his teammates all pause shooting to get a handle on the situation. Silence spreads as the gunfire dies down.
And then, breaking the silence, Layne hears it. The telltale snick of a grenade’s pin being removed. Judging from the way the sound echoed, he figures he’s closer to the forklift than he originally thought.
“Fire in the hole,” shouts Layne as he backpedals to put some distance between his current position and where he thinks they’ll toss it.
But the grenade doesn’t soar through the air as he expected. For a brief moment, nothing happens. Time seems frozen. And then, the forklift erupts, a burst of fire enveloping it. Layne flies backward from the force of the explosion. His limbs twist, and he lands awkwardly, the nose of his AR jabbing into his stomach when it hits the cement floor.
He needs a second to process what happened. They blew themselves up? Or did they try to throw it and miss?
“Team, report,” Oleg shouts.
“Here!” says Alicia.
Layne, on his stomach, manages to turn over. He checks himself for injuries. Nothing feels broken, and he doesn’t sense any major blood loss, but he can feel scrapes and cuts all over his body. His stomach aches from nearly being impaled on his rifle.
“Here,” Layne says, rising to his feet. He spots Oleg and Alicia, both of them in a similarly disheveled and confused state. Then, when he sees the flames, his eyes whip around to locate a fire extinguisher. There’s one on the nearby wall, and he rushes to grab it. He unleashes a torrent of white foam toward the forklift, and the flames dissipate within a few seconds.
Once it’s spent, he drops the extinguisher and joins his teammates. He inspects them for injuries. Nothing too serious, some cuts, mostly. A chunk of metal the size of a business card is sticking out of Alicia’s right arm, but she barely even winces.
“You need medical,” Layne says.
She shrugs him off. “Later. I’ll manage for now.”
Oleg points at the cages, a half dozen of them in one corner of the warehouse. Layne and the team knew they would be empty. Otherwise they wouldn’t have entered with guns blazing.
But, they’re not totally empty. What they do find inside those cages is much worse than the Russian captives they’re seeking.
Layne crouches next to one cage. Inside are dozens of bones. The burnt and charred remains of a five or six bodies, maybe more. Some are in a worse state than others. The disparity suggests they weren’t all burned here. Some were killed in another location, maybe burned there as well, and then brought here.
“Holy shit,” Alicia says, skulking around the cages. “This is… what the hell is this?”
Why they bothered to keep the bones of dead people in cages makes no sense. Layne doesn’t even know how to respond to Alicia’s question.
“Control,” Oleg says into his walkie. “We need Harry to get the forensics team in here. It’s a massacre.”
Something catches Layne’s eye. One bone—a leg bone—sitting at the edge of one cage has a strange marking imprinted along an edge. Like a circle.
He snakes a hand in between the bars of the cage and retrieves the bone. Next to it sits a tiny, rusted screw, likely the tool the captive used to make the carving.
“What’s that?” Alicia says.
“Not sure.” Layne turns it over, and he discovers the circle isn’t a circle, but a small symbol. A carving shaped like a circle on the bottom half, and the top half pointy. A cartoonish version of a circle on fire.
Something about it rings familiar to him, but Layne can’t place it. He holds the bone out to Alicia. “You recognize this symbol? Know where this comes from?”
She hesitates a moment, then she shakes her head.
He twists it in the light, his eyes tracing over the lines.
