Captain David Spalding was on his way to the safe house where Brian and Kim, and R.B., waited for news from Brett, or Stephan.
Driving up to the nondescript brownstone, he mentally reviewed the events of the past few days.
After Brett, Kady, and Sarah had been placed under house arrest, he’d been forced to undergo an intensive interrogation by the FBI.
He knew now what had happened, getting a lot of intel from Derek White.
But it was only because of information to which he’d been accidentally exposed during the interviews with the FBI that he’d been able to finger the mole in his own organization.
His suspicions regarding Agent Baker had been correct.
Baker was actually a Mandarin agent, who was put into Black Dog with the cover story that he was an FBI plant.
Baker had been in the FBI for almost twenty years and had managed to get assigned to the Black Dog group as an infiltrator.
Someone in the Mandarin Organization had orchestrated his actions and put him onto the Old Man.
Admiral Decker was close to uncovering the plot, and so Baker was given the kill order.
Baker had been integral in setting up the sting that netted the Ghents and implicated Black Dog in Admiral Decker’s murder.
This had come to the notice of the Director of the FBI when transmissions were intercepted by MI-5 and passed along to the NSA.
These conversations were part of the data captured by the NRO as part of their daily feed.
They were surprised and dismayed to learn that the sitting President had supplied critical operational codes and sensitive security information to a Russian adjunct and a Chinese diplomat.
This information had been revealed to certain members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A sympathetic General had passed along the information to Admiral Decker.
The Old Man had decided to get his friend, Captain ‘Buck’ Rodgers, to deploy the USS Betsy Ross to do a routine patrol off Guam.
The ostensible reason, he told Captain Rodgers, was to do a recon of North Korean resources rumored to be in the area.
The US vessel was compromised using an experimental EMP torpedo, developed by the Russians.
Captain Rodgers reported that the Chinese had developed an arcane recovery vessel and that they were tasked with stealing the complement of nuclear missiles that the Betsy Ross carried.
Through dogged determination and some measure of good luck, they had managed to survive long enough for a US Navy AEGIS attack group to rescue them.
—————
Agent Baker had disappeared.
This worried Spalding a great deal.
Not only did this mean that Baker could act with impunity, it was very likely he was part of a hit team tasked with tying up loose ends – such as Kim and Brian.
Spalding had learned of their house being burned to the ground, and Derek urged him to go to the safe house with a contingent of Black Dog’s operators.
David Spalding was not a man that took security risks lightly.
The failures of his team weighed on his conscience.
He was indebted to Brett Ghent, he felt and considered the Ghents to be the closest of friends.
Ted’s death shook him deeply.
He blamed himself for not being more alert to the danger, especially after the Marina Sands attack.
Still, there was not much more he could have done, that would have allowed the Ghents, and the Jaegers, for that matter, the freedom and flexibility that was necessary for their busy lives.
As Spalding pulled up into the driveway, his internal alert went off.
Something was not right.
He decided to just keep driving, and then, when he was out of sight of the safe house, parked his SUV.
Dialing Black Dog, he had the Operator conference his Tactical Team in with the Alpha Team.
When everyone was in-conference, he told them his suspicions.
“Derek, this is David,” he said.
“I think we need a strike team sent out to the safe house,” he told the group.
“What’s up, Dave?” said Derek.
“Well, I just saw someone I recognized looking out the second story window, and kept driving,” said David.
“Lucky for me, this is not one of our usual SUV’s. I got it from the local Fed pool when I knew we were in a hurry,” he added.
“So, it doesn’t have all the Black Dog signatures,” Travis piped up.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Spalding.
“The good news is, I don’t think he recognized me,” Spalding said.
“The bad news is, Bart and Bruce have Kim, Brian and R.B. hostage,” he said.
—————
Kim Wilder had loved Brian Cox since they were kids, and his father and her mother had married.
Brian’s father was an abusive alcoholic, whom her mother had divorced after he had driven Brian from their home.
She and Brian had finally been able to celebrate their love and had a beautiful baby boy.
Now, pregnant with their second child, whom Derek’s spy friend Wernher somehow was able to confirm was also a boy, she watched as Bruce swung R.B. up onto the sofa.
Bart and a strange, but familiar woman stood looking out the windows of the safe house.
“Safehouse, my ass!” she shouted mentally.
It had only taken a short while for the former Black Dog operatives to track them down.
Kim knew the dark, weird woman by sight, but not name.
She was the one who had led the attack on the Sands, in Singapore.
The woman was lethal, and when she looked at R.B., Kim’s heart almost exploded in her chest.
“Leave him alone, you bitch!” she shrieked.
Kim started to attack the woman but suddenly found herself gasping for breath.
So fast that she literally did not see it coming, the woman had kicked her in the side, knocking her to the ground.
Trying to catch her breath, her hands instinctively went to cover her womb.
“You cunt! I’ll kick your ass!” Brian shouted as he tried to tackle her.
She spun and caught him across the side of the head, and Brian collapsed in a heap, unconscious.
“Ophelia, you really should be more careful!” said Bruce.
“Don’t call me that, you fool!” she hissed at him.
“What difference does it make? They will be gone, soon enough!” said the man, frowning, as he toed Brian with the tip of his shoe.
“Did you kill this one, already?” he asked.
Kim’s heart sank!
Terror seized her by the throat!
Did she kill Brian?
They were going to kill her and R.B. next!
“Please, God! Help me! Save my babies!” she prayed.
Then, she heard a wolf, howling in the distance.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it.
But, the others looked around, as if they had heard it as well.
“What the fuck was that?” asked Bart.
“Coyote,” said Ophelia.
“In the middle of a suburb?” he said.
“They get around,” she shrugged.
But, Kim’s heart soared!
Inwardly, she now held on to some small sliver of hope.
—————
David Spalding opened his briefcase and took out his suppressed Glock.
It was 9mm, and select fire.
He’d always wanted a Glock 18, ever since seeing the movie with Jason Statham where the one girl had two of them.
He put on a tac vest and put the magazine pouches on his belt.
Slinging the shoulder holster over his head, he secured it to the belt, next to his knife.
He’d always favored a Bali-song knife, loving the elegant feel of the butterfly handles.
It was something he’d picked up on one of his tours before his legs had been blown off by an IED.
He reached down to the artificial legs and made sure the other two Bali-songs were secure as well.
Can’t ever be too careful, he said to himself.
—————
As he approached the blind side of the safe house, Spalding tried to be nonchalant, and to will himself to be calm.
He knew that, when hunting people, it was important to not look directly at them.
The target somehow could sense when they were being watched, so military doctrine taught soldiers to focus on a point beyond the target while keeping them in peripheral vision.
He sauntered by the house, looking a bit lost and confused, and then walked away from the window.
He saw no one on his first pass.
Waiting two minutes, he walked by again, and when he still saw no one, he went up to the brick wall.
Hugging it tightly, he went to the rear door, which opened into a basement.
Spalding carefully removed his Glock and checked the suppressor was tight.
He’d get maybe two shots if he were lucky.
—————
“Did you hear that?” said Bruce.
Another wolf howl had come along.
“Just the wind, dude, calm the fuck down,” said Ophelia.
“What are we waiting for?” Bart asked.
Brian groaned.
Kim walked over to where he was on the ground.
“Get away from him, bitch,” said Bruce.
“Fuck you!” Kim spat back.
“Oh, you will, cunt,” said Bart, “only you’ll be dead and probably won’t enjoy me sticking my cock in your dead ass as much as I will!”
Kim gave him the finger.
“Yeah, and then, just before I blow my load, I’m going to cut off your head and jam my dick into your throat!” he laughed.
“Hey, Bart!” said Bruce.
“Don’t worry, big guy, we’ll share,” said Bart.
“Just like always…” he said.
“Shut up you two dickwads,” said Ophelia.
“I heard something,” she said.
“Probably my dick getting hard, thinking about fucking Miss Priss in her dead ass,” laughed Bart.
Bruce was laughing, and then suddenly a red hole appeared in his forehead.
His eyes showed white, and he flopped to the floor, covering Brian.
“What the fuck!” said Bart.
There was a small pop, and Bart fell down.
Grabbing R.B, Ophelia ran to the bay window.
“Come out, now, or I’ll blast this brat!” she yelled.
Kim, standing four feet from Ophelia, lost it.
“Give me my baby, you fucking cunt!” she screamed.
“Kim, no!” shouted Brian, and he rolled out from under Bruce, and slammed into Ophelia’s legs.
Ophelia’s gun went off, and Brian grunted.
Kim grabbed R.B., who was crying and flailing around, and he knocked her off balance.
She hit the ground with a thud and saw stars.
Looking at Brian, she saw him gritting his teeth and holding his knee.
Blood poured out from behind his clenched hands.
“So, we meet again, eh, Sylvia?” said Captain David Spalding.
“Or, is it Adelaide? Or Myong? Who are you today, bitch?” he said, his white teeth shining brightly from his dark face.
“It’s too bad my bomb didn’t kill you, but then again, I am happy to know that you have had to live in pain and shame, asshole!” said Ophelia, sweetly.
Kim shook her head to clear it and grabbed R.B. and then crawled next to Brian.
He was in a lot of pain.
She tried to rest his head in her lap, and hug R.B. at the same time, so he wouldn’t run off.
“So, you piece of shit, are you just going to shoot me? Or try to shoot me, I should say,” said Ophelia.
“You know, bitch, I think that would deprive me of some pleasure, don’t you?” he said.
Ophelia looked at him.
“Good. Blades are much more intimate, don’t you think?” she said, putting her gun back into its small of the back holster.
As she pushed her pistol into her leather, she yanked out a push-dagger.
Slicing the air, she feinted at Spalding.
He put the Glock 18 down on the counter, and with a fluid motion, unsheathed his Bali-song from its belt holster.
He flipped off the safety catch, and expertly swung the knife in an intricate pattern, faster than Kim’s eye could follow.
The whickering blades flashed and spun, and Ophelia concentrated on Spalding’s hands, observing the pattern.
Then, she leaped at him, whirling as she passed his left side.
“Nice one, cunt,” he said.
“A bit too low, though,” Spalding said, indicating a slashed groove on the metal of his left leg.
“You might get that looked at,” he said, pointing his Bali-song at her left cheek.
A small trail of blood ran down her neck, from a slice high up near her eye on the left side of her face.
“You fucking asshole!” she yelled.
Spalding backed away from her attack, as she slashed and dove at him, stabbing and parrying his ripostes.
Ophelia hit Spalding with a roundhouse kick and stabbed down towards his face as he swung low.
He kicked up, her push dagger embedding itself in between the Kevlar tendons of his right leg, and it snapped them in two.
He rolled, trying to dislodge the dagger from her clenched fist, and managed to drag it across her right cheek.
Now, she wore matching scars, the blood dripping down her neck, and making her infuriated.
“No one stabs me, with my own knife!” she screamed.
Spalding caught her with a punch to the solar plexus, knocking the air out of her.
As she fell backward, away from him, her push dagger fell near R.B.
Kim, terrified, grabbed it, trying not to cut herself.
Ophelia, enraged, began to attack Spalding relentlessly, kicking and striking out with her elbows and hands.
She managed to connect and knocked him over a coffee table, and he landed heavily.
Taking advantage of his position, she jumped on him and tore at his damaged prosthetic leg.
Wrenching at it with all her strength, she tore it off its support.
Then, she tried beating Spalding to death with it.
As she wailed on him, Spalding knew he had made a fatal error.
His only hope was one of the other Bali-songs.
He reached down to get the one on his good leg when Ophelia spied the one on the leg she had.
Screaming with victory, she pulled the knife out of its sheath, and, with a smooth, skillful motion, unlocked the clasp.
Whirring it around expertly, she plunged it straight towards Spalding’s wide eye.
The knife missed him by a hairs’ breadth, slamming into the floor next to him and slipping away from his head.
Ophelia straddled him, a puzzled look on her face.
She looked down at Spalding as if to be about to speak to him.
Blood oozed from her mouth, bubbling redly as her eyes looked far off, at something only she could see.
Ophelia collapsed, her eyes rolling to show the white’s, and collapsed next to him.
The push dagger was deep in her skull, just above her shoulders, buried to the hilt in her brain.
Kim stood above them both, shaking with the adrenaline coursing through her.
“We’ve got to get Brian to a hospital,” she said.
Then, Kim fainted.
—————