Cutter
A moonless night fell over the small town. Cutter and Smalls had scoped out the condemned high school before the sun went down, using binoculars to count men and map out routes. These were bikers, basically just goons, not military or even security guards. They were as undisciplined as any of the Vanguard would have been in the same situation, and neither men expected them to be too much of a worry if they were taken on individually.
“You figure a trained soldier on guard duty like this,” Smalls had said while he was seated in the driver’s seat with Cutter checking out the building, “can keep his attention for just a few hours at a time in a warzone situation. These guys can probably keep theirs fixed for what, maybe thirty minutes?”
“I see one sneaking a drink from a flask already, Smalls.”
“Clearly, they ain't seeing you as a threat. If they’re even expecting you at all,”
“Would you? Hell, we knew Wyland was a threat, and look what happened to us.”
“Good point, brother,” Smalls had said.
Then, they'd waited till the sun went down. As it dropped below the horizon, they climbed out of Smalls's Prius and started to unload everything. A suppressed rifle for Smalls, his precious 30.06 that was dropped inside an AR-15 style body.
For Cutter, a pistol with a suppressor, extra clips of ammunition, and one homemade canister of tear gas he'd bought off some anarchist kid about a year back. He'd purchased two at the time, and used one as a gag during a hazing ritual. It had, surprisingly, worked pretty well. Almost too well, actually, and had ended up scaring off one of the prospects. He hadn't been able to find a use for the second one grenade until now.
Then there were his knives. They hadn't nicknamed him Cutter for nothing. As he crouched in a tangle of shrubbery near one of the side doors, with two Bolt Riders hanging out and nominally guarding it, he realized that this was the moment their assumptions about these guy's capabilities were going to be put to the test.
Smalls was off in the distance, crouched up on a hill with a clear line of the sight on the building. He'd been a pretty stellar shot in his USMC days, and he'd kept up the practice over the years. But, if he was off by just a little bit, this could go very wrong for Cutter, very quickly. As Cutter crept through the brush, his blackened knife gripped in one hand, he prayed Smalls was as good of a shot under pressure as he was on the range.
His eyes fixated on the two men, who were laughing and jostling back and forth, he crept closer. Smalls would be able to see him from this vantage point, and they'd agreed that it was up to him to start this little shindig.
Smalls fired. His rifle wasn't any louder than a cap gun, and all Cutter heard was the sound of mosquito whizzing by. The man farthest from Cutter reached up, almost idly, and put a hand to his neck. Even in the dim light, Cutter could see the look of horror on his face as he pulled his bloody hand away and looked at it. His eyes were wide in terror, and he clutched his hand back to his throat as his partner stared in shock.
The man Smalls had shot stumbled a little, landing against his buddy. His friend tried to steady him. “Dude? Dude! What the fuck, man? What happened?”
Cutter came up out of the bushes in a flash, his dark knife not even glinting in the low light. It was like cool black ice on a winter night as he came up behind the uninjured man and put a hand over his mouth, pulling him back into the bushes. The man screamed into his hand, but his wordless cry was muffled as Cutter pulled him out of sight.
He didn't bother speaking to him. Didn't bother threatening, or asking for information. He brought his knife up, cut deep into the man's throat, and slid it across in a horizontal arc. He opened up his jugular artery, unleashing a warm flood of blood, as he kept his hand clutched across his mouth. The man kicked, once, twice, and struggled for a long, tense moment before falling silent and ending his struggle.
Cutter had killed before. Sometimes, in this line of work there was a certain amount of murder that had to happen to get a point across, or to protect what was yours. This, though, felt personal to the Vanguard president. This man had been at least partly responsible for taking Liona, whether he knew it or not.
He dropped the fresh corpse to the ground, hiding him in the bushes. He slipped out, checked the man Smalls had shot, then pulled him back to join his comrade. With both of them hidden away, he gave a thumbs up to the unseen Smalls, and slipped through the side doors. On his way through, he glanced down at the concrete. A few drops of blood had splattered there, but nothing overtly noticeable. If anyone else came through, they'd just think the two guys had fucked off for a beer or something.
Now in the hallway, he dropped to a crouch and listened. From here on, he was going to be alone with no cover from Smalls. Nevertheless, Smalls had his own part of the plan to carry out. He was to start dropping any singular out of the way Bolt Riders he happened to see. Maybe he could thin out the herd a little bit before word got out that Cutter was in the building.