Carson tucked his handgun into his waist and slipped on a pair of infrared goggles hanging on a wall rack next to a few other helpful toys. Then he softly slid through the trapdoor and let himself down to the ground, cradling the M4 so it wouldn’t bang against the sides of the opening.

  The underside of the cabin was a bed of pine needles and moss, so his impact on the ground was nearly silent. The structure was only raised a foot and a half off the ground, a blessing and a curse: the interlopers wouldn’t expect a threat to come from the small, dark space underneath the cabin, but it was difficult to move around in. Goggles on, Carson pivoted slowly on his belly to get a visual on his attackers.

  Shooters One and Two were standing about five meters from the front of the cabin; Carson could see a clear heat signature of their lower legs and feet. A third, the man Carson had shot, was lying motionless a few feet away, heat signature still there but fading slowly. The utter stillness of the body told Carson all he needed to know about that one.

  Simple. A three-man kill team. One had tried to go in first, ideally to catch the target in bed and end it quickly. When he fell, the other two switched to plan B, which apparently meant hosing the place down with overwhelming firepower until their victim was caught in the hail of bullets.

  Too simple. If he had been planning this op, Carson would have another man holding back, probably from a vantage point higher up. That one would have a longer rifle, definitely some night vision capability, and he would be covering the rear window on the east. If Carson attempted to get out that way, the fourth man would take him down, and if the assault team needed precision shooting or other contingencies, the fourth man was a fail-safe. Carson figured the fourth man, if he existed, was higher up on the hillside to the northeast, and from his limited vantage point under the cabin, Carson couldn’t see that high. Neither could he be seen, fortunately.

  Shooter One finally got his mag seated, chambered the first round, and opened up again, walking his rounds across the cabin, trying to pin its occupant down in case the barrage hadn’t gotten him yet. Shooter Two had timed it perfectly and ran dry just as One started his second mag. Carson heard the empty clatter on the ground as Two started a reload. These guys were not messing around or underestimating their quarry. Carson was just one small step ahead of them. He hoped it would be enough.

  He began a slow commando crawl, just like any grunt in basic training, keeping his weapon held up in front of him. When he was a few feet away from the edge of cabin, he stopped, now two meters closer to the shooters. Carson had already chambered his first shell while in the storeroom, and now he flipped the safety off. He lined up on Shooter One’s legs and squeezed the trigger.

  The Benelli M4 roared and bucked hard. Shooter One’s legs simply disappeared, and he collapsed mere feet away, finger clenched on the trigger, emptying the magazine of his modified AR in a continuous burst which peppered the cottonwood trees just north of the cabin. Even as Shooter One opened his mouth to scream his shock and pain, Carson gave him another one in the chest. Shooter One jerked hard and was still.

  Carson moved quickly. He rolled hard to the right, three tight turns, and fired again, hitting Shooter Two in the right knee. Two hit the dirt with a gasp. Tough man, he wriggled wildly and seemed to be trying to get his rifle back into play, so Carson gave him another one. Two flopped violently and stopped moving.

  Carson did not allow himself to relax. So far, the team had performed almost exactly as Carson would have expected; it was move-for-move how he would have planned and executed the op. Carson was now positive there was a fourth man, and right now he would be moving, trying to relocate to a better spot from where he could see what had happened to the rest of his team and engage the target.

  If the fourth man (Carson had already mentally labeled him “Shooter Boss”) had good night vision going for him, then Carson was at a distinct disadvantage despite his own goggles. The range of the shotgun was significantly less than the scoped rifle Shooter Boss probably carried. Even another AR-15 would outrange the shotgun by a long margin. If Shooter Boss saw him first, and was far enough away, Carson was cooked. He needed to move closer and engage at effective range, or re-arm with a longer ranged weapon. But he wanted an even better edge, one that he hoped still rested securely on its rack in the storeroom. He also needed a rifle.

  Scuttling quickly out from under the cabin, Carson snatched up Shooter Two’s AR, pausing just long enough to yank a fresh magazine from the fallen man’s rig. He threw himself back into the relative safety of the cabin’s underbelly, and seated the mag with a crisp clack. The battlefield pickup would give him a much better range and sustained rate of fire. Leaving the Benelli under the cabin, he crawled back up through the trapdoor and re-entered the storeroom.

  The NVG’s on his face allowed him to see even in the enclosed room using the scant moonlight coming through the holes punctured in the door. He pulled a small black pistol from a box against the wall and made sure it was ready to fire with the type of ammunition he required. He slipped this into his waistband next to the Sig and went back down the trapdoor. Then he quick-crawled to the west side of the cabin.

  Peering out at the night, his goggles registered fading heat signatures from the three bodies, and he prayed that there was still enough glow to mask his own brighter presence in his opponent’s sight. By now Shooter Boss would probably have moved, circling around for a better angle. Timing was all-important. Carson needed to act before Shooter Boss got settled in a new position.

  He drew the small pistol out of his pocket and glanced at it long enough to ensure it was ready to fire. It was a flare gun, probably meant for signaling a helicopter in one of many possible scenarios the cabin’s builders had stocked it for. But it was also an instant floodlight, and that was exactly what Carson needed at the moment.

  He tore off his night vision goggles, blinked rapidly, and then aimed the flare gun up, angling the muzzle to just clear the edge of the cabin wall. Then he fired.

  There was a loud pop and receding hiss as the flare rocketed upward. Carson, shielded from the glare by the cabin, kept his eyes on the western hillside, twenty meters distant. High overhead, the flare burst.

  The night briefly became day. Grass, cottonwoods, sagebrush were thrown in sharp relief. Carson let his peripheral vision monitor for movement –

  There. On the far right, a shape, a man in camo fatigues, eyes hidden behind night vision goggles, face smeared with grease paint. Shooter Boss. He was staggering backward, rifle in hand, as his night vision overloaded, blinding him. He reached up to tear away the goggles.

  Carson crawled forward so his rifle would clear the lip of the cabin’s belly, then lined up the AR-15’s sights. He commenced firing, holding himself to careful three round bursts even though the weapon had been modified to allow for full-auto.

  It was almost too easy. He didn’t even need tracers. In the light of the flare, he could see where his rounds were going, foliage and dirt going up in puffs illuminated by the light filtering over everything, and he corrected instantly, keeping on target. Shooter Boss flinched as if stung, then folded over into the sage. Carson sent a few more bursts into the area where he’d disappeared, then waited.

  The flare faded out, and darkness returned. Silence reigned.

  Carson put on his goggles again, and moved out, AR-15 up and ready. In a few moments he had covered the twenty meters and found his target curled in the sagebrush, glowing green in the soft sea of NV static. Shooter Boss wasn’t moving.

  If he was in a movie, Carson thought he would now kneel down and try to get some information from the man just before he died. Depending on how realistic the movie was, either Shooter Boss would reveal the whole plot and who hired him, or he would be deep in shock as he bled out and would incapable of coherent speech. Perhaps he would snarl some challenge and then die smiling, like a true professional.

  But this was no movie and Shooter Boss didn’t have much of a skull left, so he couldn’t reveal anything to anyone. Carson stood over the body, admired the effect of his marksmanship, and then threw up everything he’d ever eaten. He had killed before in war, but this was up close and it was ugly.

  The night breeze washed over him, and his body, covered in a sheen of sweat, shivered uncontrollably. His mind, focused before purely on surviving, now began to operate in overdrive. Questions, lots of questions. How, how, how on earth – and who?

  Carson shook his head. First things first.

  He returned to the cabin, hurriedly dressed, and then re-armed himself with the modified AR-15. It was a well-maintained weapon, and he was more comfortably using it than the shotgun, having spent years in the military with similar rifles. He left via the front door, carefully scoping the area with his goggles to make sure there were no other shooters or observers. Then he stopped to loot the bodies outside of their extra magazines.

  He spent the next hour in a careful patrol of the surrounding area, covering a half-mile circumference. He found nothing. If the team had approached the area in a vehicle, it was parked much further out and he wouldn’t waste any more time trying to find it in the dark.

  It was past three in the morning when Carson returned to the cabin. He collected and dragged the bodies one by one to the front of the cabin, where he thoroughly searched them with the aid of a flashlight from the cabin. Before wrapping them in a tarp, he relieved them of their sidearms, cargo pocket contents, and a car key he found in the left breast pocket of Shooter Boss. Having salvaged all their usable gear, he rolled the bodies under the cabin to await daylight.

  Then he gathered a small quantity of camping gear, just the essentials, and headed out into the night. He found a secluded spot overlooking the cabin, far enough to avoid any further visitors entirely, but close enough to see them approach the scene of the night battle.

  He spent the rest of the night lying on a sleeping bag in the trees, listening to the crickets start up again one by one, and trying to calculate how many men’s lives had been saved over the centuries by the little black insects.

  Morning found Carson hard at work. Before daybreak he was out again on a long scout, well armed and provisioned. It didn’t take him long to find the strike team’s vehicle parked in a grove of aspens just off the dirt road leading to the cabin. It was a big SUV, black (of course!), with Colorado plates. Even to Carson’s trained eye it gave up nothing of its origins; the vehicle had been stripped clean prior to coming here. He tried the key he’d recovered the night before and was pleased to hear the engine roar to life without trouble.

  His recon uncovered no further sign of intruders, and the area seemed as remote and secure as ever, so he drove the SUV back to the cabin. He loaded up the four dead men into the back and drove across country for almost a mile. He finally spotted a deep ravine that fit his purpose. Another hour and the bodies were buried in the ravine, earth caved in over the top and boulders on top of that, to discourage scavengers.

  It was a hasty job, but Carson knew he wouldn’t be in the area much longer. And in any event, he doubted anyone would be conducting a massive search for a hit team who attacked in the middle of the night, at least not in the near future. He hadn’t expected a professional strike team carrying out a hit on him, but so far he was still within the bounds of his Activation Protocol.

  Carson returned to the cabin by midmorning, tired and on edge. The vehicle’s radio produced nothing but static on all stations. That in itself was unusual, and only confirmed Carson’ suspicions that something big and bad was happening. His mandate was clear; he was to remain on site for six weeks, but even so the isolation and lack of outside data was weighing on him. If the region had been hit by an EMP, what else might be going on? He wouldn’t know until he emerged from his period of isolation.

  He swept up the broken glass littering the floor of the cabin, then cooked and ate a late breakfast, keeping a weapon always close to hand. Afterward he washed his dishes meticulously, then cleaned and sorted all his weapons, including those he’d taken from the kill team. He now possessed four AR-15’s (one with an expensive scope), his Benelli M4 shotgun, five handguns, and a compact hunting rifle that had been in the cabin. As he worked, his mind sorted through the problems he faced.

  His orders were straight-forward. Upon activation, which had come when the call reached him at his gym, he was to reach the cabin and await further contact. If a stand-down order came he would return to his apartment in the city and resume his normal status.

  If given operational status, however, or if he went forty-five days without contact, he was to proceed to his primary objective. Once that was accomplished he could pursue secondary objectives as he was able in an effort to combat and repair whatever had befallen the government.

  But the attack last night had changed everything. A scuffle with vandals, opportunists, or even a horde of thugs would have been easily within protocol. But his attackers had not encountered the cabin randomly. They were assassins, professionals intent on finding and killing him specifically. No one was supposed to know Carson’s secure location except his direct superiors.

  Who would be capable of sending such a team against him? All of the attackers were physically fit, some with military tattoos he didn’t recognize. No ID, no wallets, no cell phones, no cash. High-grade weaponry, including top-of-the-line night vision gear. Tactical clothing and equipment professional-grade but anonymous, tags removed.

  Their faces were unremarkable, with military-style haircuts. Two white, one Hispanic, one black. Classic military or ex-military operatives. Mercenaries, perhaps. CIA contract boys. They could have been anyone. There were hundreds of thousands of these types in every country across the globe.

  Was the whole thing a setup? Was the activation bogus? Had Carson somehow become a liability? Could his program have been infiltrated by outside forces that were now going down a list and cleaning house?

  Each new thought that occurred to him sounded more and more like the plot to a crummy B-grade action film. He had nothing, no data, no contacts. He knew he had a superior officer somewhere who kept tabs on him and presumably other agents in his program, but he had no idea who it was or how to contact them quickly. By design, he was completely independent, trained to operate in isolation, unable to bring down his fellow agents if compromised.

  He could only proceed with extreme caution and wait for activation. By now, whoever sent the kill team knew they weren’t coming back. Either another team would be sent to finish the job, or another means of neutralizing him would be employed. A drone strike could wipe him out in a microsecond. But would they? Did they even have that capacity anymore? How far would they go?

  Carson gave up. There were no answers to these questions, and the only thing he was sure about was the fact that the cabin was no longer secure, if it ever had been. He could not spend another night here. He had to move and keep moving, until he was given operational status or recalled. Without a phone signal, not even on the satellite phone, he wasn’t sure how that would happen.

  But there was work to do.

  Carson spent the afternoon putting supplies and weapons together. He filled a backpack with necessary items and left it by the door, ready to go. He cached the weapons and food he wasn’t taking with him in the woods north of the cabin, in a pit he dug by hand. Then he covered it with rocks and erased all traces.

  By late afternoon, he was ready. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he headed deeper into the hills, munching trail mix for his dinner. Besides food and water for a week, his backpack contained a gasmask, two pairs of night vision goggles with spare batteries, binoculars, wire cutters, assorted tools, waterproof matches, some clothing, rope, a shortwave radio, and a small but thorough first aid kit. He was well-armed.

  It was a waiting game now, to see whether or not the failure of the kill team would elicit a response, or if he would just wait out the isolation period in solitude before going operational.

  Patience was an irritating virtue to cultivate, but Carson had spent eight years waiting for this already. Another week couldn’t possibly kill him.

  Chapter 4: Emergence

  For a solid week after his cabin was attacked, Carson camped in the foothills, moving to a new spot each night. Close enough to watch the cabin through binoculars, but far enough away that at the first sign of an armed response he could fade away into the mountains. He went completely to earth, laying still all day long and only moving at night, and then only far enough to filter water from a small creek. He made no fires and fired no weapons, although deer were plentiful in the area and he could have used some venison to augment his rations, which were over half-gone after the week ended.

  But he might have saved himself the trouble. Carson saw nothing, heard nothing, sensed nothing. No planes or choppers flew over, no vehicles approached. If there had been a second team, they must have come in the night and left no trace of themselves.

  After the week was over, Carson returned to the cabin, retrieved his cached supplies, and weapons, and resumed occupancy. He was becoming restless, though, and he ranged far into the hills around the cabin by day. The attack had raised so many questions that he needed answers to, and to sit day after day twiddling his thumbs was agonizing. His worst fear was that his entire program, or at least the monitoring staff, had all been neutralized in some way and he would remain forever in doubt, operational but with no way to tell if he would ever be recalled.

  No contact with the outside world meant that Carson had no idea what had happened to the city, the nation, or the world. Was a radioactive cloud on its way, killing all life in its path? There were no answers. The radios he had access to were useless, which was in itself a bad sign but did little to clear up the mystery. He knew two-way radios were against protocol to bring to the cabin, as were any personal cell phones or other means of communication that might compromise him. But with the location compromised anyway, he resented the severity of his isolation.