James kicked open the heavy carved wooden doors. Mason followed a half-step behind, his rifle sweeping the room in a smooth arc.
The suite was a wreck of luxury -- scattered bottles of high-end liquor, overturned crystal. And slumped on the sofa, neck twisted at a broken angle, the massive corpse of the Crips' boss.
Standing in the corner, a blond man in a tailored suit had his back to them. He was methodically adjusting his cashmere scarf in the reflection of a full-length mirror.
Bertrand Laroche.
He didn't flinch. He didn't even turn around. He just continued fixing his cuffs, holding James's gaze in the mirror. There was no panic in his eyes, only a faint, recognizable trace of mockery.
"A feint?" Bertrand murmured to his reflection. "I did not think Anthony possessed that kind of tactical imagination. Or perhaps he simply played his part perfectly the other day."
He watched the two operators through the glass. "The weapon handling is professional. Very tight. Anthony's old war brothers? He kept a second strike team hidden."
"Hands behind your head. Down on your knees. Slow," James barked. His rifle was locked dead center on the Frenchman's spine.
Mason shifted outward, taking a forty-five-degree angle. His muzzle trained on Bertrand's profile. Textbook overlapping fire suppression.
Anthony's briefing had been explicit. Do not underestimate the target. He is elite. James's own instincts screamed the same thing -- this impeccably dressed man was infinitely more dangerous than the armed thugs dying in the hallways below.
Bertrand ignored the command.
He turned around slowly and offered a polite, patient smile. He knew Anthony wouldn't have sent men to kill him. Anthony needed him alive.
His posture was entirely relaxed.
If Anthony had been standing in the room, [Compensatory Perception] would have flagged the truth instantly: Bertrand was not relaxed. He was a steel spring pulled to maximum tension. Every millimeter of his shift in weight was calculated against the trigger fingers of the two Special Forces operators.
"I don't believe you can stop me," Bertrand said softly.
Before the last syllable hit the air, he moved.
He didn't lunge forward. He dropped.
He slid sideways, a terrifyingly fast lateral shift that carried him straight into the single blind spot between James and Mason's overlapping lines of fire. The sudden disruption of their sightlines forced both operators to adjust.
Instinct took over. Both men pulled their triggers.
Bertrand went lower. His body banked almost parallel to the crimson carpet. As he slid under the arc of fire, his right leg swept out like a scythe, aiming directly for Mason's shin.
"Contact!" James roared.
Mason had already fired, but Bertrand's slide had slipped the geometry of the shot. The 5.56mm round clipped the billowing fabric of Bertrand's suit jacket and buried itself in the drywall.
Mason saw the sweep coming and tried to parry, but he wasn't the primary target.
From his sliding posture, Bertrand snapped his wrist. The titanium spike shot from his cuff. He drove it in a silver blur straight at James's trigger hand.
James ripped his hand back, yielding a crucial foot of space.
Bertrand used the momentum of his own missed strike to pivot off the floor. He spun his body weight and whipped his left leg squarely into Mason's knee joint.
The wet crack echoed through the room.
Mason groaned, his leg buckling instantly. He dropped to one knee. But Tier One operators don't go down clean. As he fell, Mason lunged forward and locked his arms around Bertrand's striking leg in a vice grip.
A flash of genuine malice crossed Bertrand's face. He raised the titanium spike and drove it downward toward the back of Mason's exposed neck.
James dropped his rifle.
He crashed into Bertrand from the side like a freight train, throwing his left forearm up to block the descending strike.
The spike punched straight through James's Kevlar-weave sleeve and sank deep into the muscle of his forearm. Blood sprayed the carpet.
Ignoring the spike buried in his flesh, James drove his combat knife toward Bertrand's ribs with his right hand.
Bertrand parried the blade with his free hand, twisting his body to trap James's knife arm.
But James was Delta. You don't survive Delta selection without muscle memory that borders on the supernatural. With his left arm still pinned and bleeding from the spike, James drew his sidearm, twisted his wrist against the joint lock, and shoved the pistol barrel upward.
It stopped two inches from Bertrand's chest.
Point blank. Unmissable.
James pulled the trigger.
Bertrand moved like something without bones.
In the fraction of a second it took the firing pin to strike, Bertrand arched his spine backward in a violent, fluid contortion. The 9mm round roared past his sternum, close enough to scorch his silk tie, and blew out the plaster behind him.
In the same twisting motion, Bertrand ripped the titanium spike out of James's arm and slashed it across James's knuckles.
The cold, razor-thin slice of pain sent a shock of adrenaline up James's spine. If he hadn't dodged that shot, James realized, I'd be dead right now.
Two Tier One operators. Two shots fired.
Bertrand had slipped both, crippled one man, wounded the other, and completely broken their tactical rhythm.
But Mason was a Ranger. Excruciating pain didn't stop him; it just stripped away his civilized restraints.
As Bertrand contorted backward to dodge James's bullet, his balance shifted onto his one free leg. Mason, still on the floor clutching Bertrand's trapped leg, roared and drove his good heel directly into the side of Bertrand's supporting knee.
"Ugh!"
Bertrand grunted. For the first time, the elegant mask cracked.
The heavy blow compromised his balance. The fluid, untouchable momentum broke.
James seized the half-second opening. He dropped his pistol. It was too slow for what needed to happen next.
He charged.
Ignoring the blood pouring down his arm, James hit Bertrand with his full body weight. He threw both arms around the Frenchman from behind, locking his upper body in a crushing bear hug.
"Mason!" James bellowed.
Mason dragged himself forward on his shattered leg, howling through his teeth. He threw his entire upper body over Bertrand's thrashing legs, pinning them to the floor like an anchor.
Two veteran operators discarded every ounce of tactical finesse, relying on brute force, weight, and pain tolerance to drag the scorpion down to the carpet.
Bertrand fought back with terrifying strength. He twisted, thrashed, and bucked with enough leverage to nearly throw both men off him.
His eyes burned with furious disbelief. He, an elite operative of the High Table, was being wrestled to the floor like a pub brawler by two grunts who refused to die.
"Fils de pute!"
The elegance dissolved. Bertrand cursed in raw French, reduced to the ferocity of a trapped animal.
He snapped his wrist. The blood-slicked spike emerged again. He stabbed blindly backward, trying to sever the tendons in James's locking arms.
James buried his face against the back of Bertrand's skull, keeping his head out of the strike zone, and clamped his biceps tighter, using pure mass to smother the Frenchman's mobility.
Mason wrapped his arms around Bertrand's knees and threw his chest over the man's shins, absorbing brutal kicks to his own ribs to hold the pin.
James had respected Anthony's warning. But coming from Delta Force -- a unit that recruited from the top one percent of the Rangers and Green Berets -- James hadn't truly believed one man in a suit could outfight two Tier One operators in a closed room.
If Bertrand hadn't been so arrogantly certain of his own superiority...
If Anthony hadn't warned them to expect a monster...
If Mason hadn't been willing to sacrifice his own leg...
They would both be dead.
The three men thrashed across the floor. They smashed through a glass coffee table. Expensive wine, sweat, and blood soaked into the rug.
Bertrand was a viper pinned to a chopping block. Every time James or Mason tried to secure a final hold, he lashed out, slicing James's ribs and forearms with the spike. Mason was gray-faced, hovering on the edge of a pain-induced blackout, but his grip never loosened.
Slowly, inevitably, the combined weight and relentless pressure of the two soldiers began to drain Bertrand's stamina.
James finally forced his knee squarely into the center of Bertrand's spine.
He freed his right hand, grabbed his discarded pistol from the floor, and brought the heavy steel butt crashing down across Bertrand's nose.
The cartilage shattered.
Mason surged upward and grabbed Bertrand's right wrist. He jammed the barrel of his own sidearm against the cuff mechanism and fired.
The 9mm round blew through Bertrand's wrist, shattering the bone and destroying the hidden spike launcher.
The icy blue light in Bertrand's eyes finally flickered and dimmed. His body went slack against the carpet, his chest heaving with ragged, bloody breaths.
James collapsed backward, chest heaving. He wiped a mixture of sweat and blood from his eyes.
He looked at the Frenchman bleeding out on the floor, then at Mason, who had passed out from the pain but still had both arms locked in a death grip around Bertrand's legs.
James keyed his radio. His voice was a raw rasp.
"Target secured. Mason is down. Broken leg, critical condition. I need a medic up here now."
Bertrand lay on his side. Blood poured from his ruined nose and shattered wrist.
Despite it all, a wet, rattling chuckle bubbled up from his throat.
"Delta Force," Bertrand wheezed, spitting blood onto the carpet. "And a Ranger."
James pressed a hand against his bleeding forearm. "You're not standard cartel either, Frenchie."
The door kicked open. Old Cannon stormed in, leveling his Benelli shotgun at the man on the floor.
James held up a hand. "Hold fire. Boss wants him breathing."
He looked at Cannon. "Grab the target. And tear this room apart. We're taking every dollar the Crips have left to cover the boss's overhead."
Bertrand didn't resist as Cannon hauled him up by his collar.
Instead, a strange, feverish light danced in the Frenchman's unbroken eye. He looked at James, and he smiled through his broken teeth.
It was the look of a man who realized the game was finally getting interesting.
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