One week later…The Warehouse, two a.m.

“All clear. Two on the roof, looks like Rashid’s men. Got ten more inside.” Juarez had scouted ahead of the rest of the team and moved to just outside the warehouse while the rest of them stayed back waiting for the all clear. "Just like we thought."

The rest of them crouched inside an abandoned apartment building a couple of blocks over, Audra and Trigger off to the side. Reaper spread the blueprint of the warehouse out on the ground. "Agent K confirmed they are waiting a mile out for our go-ahead, Bradshaw took the bait and should be here within the next 30 minutes. We will proceed as planned, move-in secure the gold, take out Rashid's men and set up Bradshaw for the takedown."

It was a solid mission, laid out in a sequence they’d done millions of times before, only this time Diggs would be guarding something more precious than gold.

"Audra, you and Trigger, will stay back until we've cleared the warehouse. Diggs will signal you through your hand held.” Reaper pointed to the small radio he’d given to Audra. "Is that clear?"

"Loud and clear," Audra said.

Reaper nodded and the men checked their weapons, and readied their gear to move out. Diggs moved over to Audra and cupped her cheek in his palm. "It's okay. We've done this a thousand times, standard operating procedure."

Audra gave him a pale and shaky nod. Diggs reached out and patted Trigger. “You're in charge of her while I'm gone."

Trigger sat to attention, and Diggs would be dammed but he thought the dog understood every word he said. But he didn't have time to think about the dog anymore, "Audra you promise – stay behind until I give you the all clear."

"I promise." She wavered for a second, and then as if coming to a decision, wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. "Please be careful."

He squeezed her back and then set her from him, getting to his feet. "I'll see you in a little bit." And with that he joined his team, focusing on the mission ahead.

Reaper lead the team, opened the door, looked out and then gestured with his hand for them to move out. They fell into line, running in formation in a crouched run to the west corner of the fence surrounding the warehouse. Juarez had already cut out a whole with a small torch allowing them to enter quickly and quietly and join their teammate along the back corner of the warehouse.

"We can enter here," Juarez indicated the broken window just overhead. “There’s a tall stack of crates that will give us camouflage until we’re in position.”

He had already secured a rope and without hesitation began climbing, hand over hand, up and over through the window. Diggs waited until the rest of his team had gone in and followed them up, moving just as efficiently.

Once they were all inside, they crouched behind the tall, wooden crates and the metal wall of the warehouse. Juarez held up four fingers and pointed to the Southeast corner, three more in the center, two more towards the west wall, and one in the front corner behind them.

The men communicated with hand gestures, keeping silent so that the enemy wouldn't detect their arrival or location. Reaper gestured for Hicks and Juarez to take the biggest group. Reaper would go up the center and Diggs would take out the single man closest to them before flanking around to join Reaper.

They nodded and moved out. They needed stealth for this mission, so Diggs had screwed a silencer on the end of his pistol, which he now held in front of him as he moved silently around the crates. The dark shadows inside were broken up only by intermittent round halos of dingy light from the hanging pendant style lights overhead.

Diggs stayed in the shadows, leaned against the crate at his back and peeked around the corner. His target stood facing away from him, an AR-15 held in his grip. The man shifted from foot to foot, as if he could sense the impending storm headed his way. Diggs cleared his perimeter, sheathed his pistol at his hip and pulled out his knife. The less gunfire the better.

He crept forward on the balls of his feet, knife in his dominant hand. Diggs was on him before the guard knew he was no longer alone, his hand covering the man’s mouth as his blade sliced through his throat.

Diggs lowered the lifeless body to the ground and kept moving without thought. Killing was part of his job, one he’d never had a problem with. Not when it came to terrorists.

Another large cluster of crates blocked his path from Reaper. Diggs approached with caution, peered around the corner into darkness. He could make out Reaper taking out one of his guards with his bare hands and then moving in deeper into the warehouse.

King and Hicks covered the other side, moving in a steady pattern across back toward Diggs, covering the flank. Diggs sheathed his knife and pulled out his pistol. He’d bring up this side and join King to complete the sweep.

He sensed the menace a second too late.

The blow took him by surprise, slamming into his temple and knocking him to the ground. His gun flew from his hand. Pain wrapped around his skull. Dark spots danced in his vision.

And then a man Diggs had never thought to see again stepped in front of him, holding a pistol aimed straight at his head.

“Dawson,” Diggs breathed out, unable to believe his eyes. At that moment, it felt like a bolt of lightning had shot from the black clouds overhead and pierced his chest. “How? You were dead. I saw it.”

It was impossible. John Dawson had died on that table in the lab. His eyes had to be playing some kind of trick on him; maybe it was his subconscious way of punishing himself still for his failure to protect his teammates.

Diggs blinked and rubbed his eyes; blood smeared the back of his hand. But Dawson’s face stayed firmly in place as did the deadly gun aimed right at Diggs’ chest.

“I know, you thought you’d washed your hands of me, and I wanted it that way. I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. How does it feel to be on the other end? Knowing the man you’ve regarded as a brother betrayed your trust?” Dawson’s lips twisted into a mocking grin, but his eyes were cold with hate.

“I didn’t leave you. I tried to stop them,” Diggs said, fighting the throbbing ache in his temple from where Dawson had slammed the butt of his pistol only seconds before.

Dawson let out a low laugh, something that Diggs had never thought he’d hear again, only this time it wasn’t out-of-the-easy camaraderie of a teammate and best friend—but his laugh was pure menace. “You saw your opportunity for an escape and took it. I know exactly what happened. You left me to die.”

Diggs fought to keep his expression neutral, but Dawson’s words were ice to an open wound that hadn’t healed.

“There it is,” Dawson said in a low voice, “there’s the guilt. You never were that good at hiding your emotions. You always were weak. Always fighting to be so big, only to fall so easily.”

“Dawson, I swear I tried to stop them. It killed me to leave you there—”

Diggs knew he had misspoke as soon as Dawson’s eyes blackened with fury. “Killed you?”

“I think about you every day,” Diggs said broken-like, feeling any hint of a past connection between them slipping further and further away.

“I thought about you every day, too,” Dawson’s chilling smile turned to ice. There wasn’t even a hint of feeling left in his voice. “Thought about how good it was going to feel to watch the life slip from your eyes, knowing I was the one to kill you. And knowing you couldn’t do anything to stop me from killing the rest of your team.”

“Please, don’t do this. We were teammates. That has to mean something.” Diggs began to slowly inch his right hand down, closer to the small knife strapped to his ankle. Despite the fact that the thought of harming his best friend made bile rise to the back of his throat, Diggs wouldn’t lie there and be a victim. He’d find a way to disarm his teammate and buy himself some time to convince him that he hadn’t left him alone in the lab.

“Just like it meant something when you turned and walked out that door, even when I begged you to stop?”

“Walked out? Man, I was bleeding out on the floor next to you. They carried me out of that room.” Confused and desperate, Diggs had to fight the urge to stop going for his knife. Dawson’s expression was unwavering, and his best friend didn’t seem to be alive behind those dark eyes anymore.

“Maybe you thought I was too out of it see, but I was wide awake. I saw you. You might as well have killed me yourself.” The once steady hand gripping the pistol shook. “Do you really think I could ever forget the pain of watching my best friend turn his back on me?”

Diggs was only a couple of inches from the knife now. It would be close, but it was his only hope. Dawson wasn’t in his right mind, and Diggs didn’t know what they had done to him, but he began to suspect they might have scrubbed his memory somehow. “No, don’t you remember? I was on the floor next to Quantum; they had you on the table. Both of us had been incapacitated. I heard them—they’d overdosed all of us to test our reactions.”

“Really? And what—they implanted some new memory in my head? Made me think my team had betrayed me?” Dawson’s hand continued to shake, but he kept the gun level and aimed.

Diggs kept talking, he had about an inch left. “Hell, yes, they screwed with all our heads. You know that. Our entire team has had to go into hiding, because we can’t fucking be around other people without having some kind of seizure or brain overload. They did that—they did that to all of us. Fight it—fight whatever they’ve done to you. You know we would never betray the team. You took the oath—same as me. The team comes first.”

The wild glow in Dawson’s gaze gave way and a cold, expressionless mask slid into place. “That’s right, I took the oath and you broke it. No more talk.”

Diggs’ fingers brushed the hemline of his pants. Dawson’s hand steadied. He dropped the gun an inch and squeezed the Trigger. Pain ripped through Diggs’ gut and threw him flat on his back. He clutched his stomach below his bullet proof vest, his hands warm with his own blood.

Dawson stepped over him. Diggs made a grab for his ankle, touched his teammate’s boot, only to have Dawson kick him away. Weakness flooded his system, cold seeped outward into his limbs. He couldn’t move.

Dawson stopped to lean down into Diggs’ line of sight, not an ounce of regret visible on his face. “I want you to live long enough to hear the rest of our team die. So, try not to pass out too soon from the blood loss, this should only take a minute.”

“John,” Diggs rasped out, the pain keeping him pinned to the spot on the ground.

“I’ll see you in hell, brother.” Dawson walked away and Diggs turned his head and watched him leave, helpless.

Through the opening in the crates, he could see King moving into position, just like they’d planned. Dawson was behind the crate closest to him. Diggs sucked in a breath to scream, only to gasp in agony. The bullet felt like it was lodged in his body.

His worst nightmare was coming to life before his very eyes. He’d always known deep down that he was a failure; he’d let down Dawson and Quantum, but he’d never imagined a nightmare like this. He’d not only failed his best friend, he was fixing to witness his entire team be murdered.

Diggs managed to roll onto his side, wheezing and clutching his stomach in an attempt to slow the flood of blood leaving his body. Dawson was less than 10 feet from King, who had his back to the other man and was scanning the opening where the rest of the terrorists were set to arrive for the meet.

Like the ghost he was, Dawson rose behind King, lifting his arm in one fluid movement. Diggs dug his nails into the concrete, braced himself for the blast of agony, and forced out a hoarse yell. King dove left, Dawson fired, and the bullet buried in the wood crate where King had been standing a split second before.

Blackness teased the edge of Diggs’ vision, but he kept his toehold on consciousness, knowing he’d have to warn the team somehow. But that one precious yell had cost him dearly, blood poured through the Dragon Skin body armor, soaking his hand.

He heard King’s surprised grunt, and then the sound of flesh meeting flesh. Keeping his lids peeled, he watched King dive for Dawson and pin the man down to the ground, King’s strength an unstoppable force.

And instead of fighting his hold, Dawson went limp. Diggs knew the moment King eased up on the chokehold, and recognition dawned.

Suddenly, without the slightest shift in expression, Dawson’s arms swept around and down onto King, knocking his grip free in what had to be a bruising strike. King’s heavy weight brought them down, but Dawson was already rolling up into a crouch, sprinting for his gun.

King recovered quickly, rolling to his back, and coming up with his own weapon in hand. He fired off a round, and then Diggs watched in horror as a bullet bit into King’s eye and he hit the ground hard. Only King didn’t lie there helplessly like Diggs, he kept firing in defense.

Diggs could not see Dawson anymore, but knew the man must’ve run for cover under the onslaught of bullets coming from King. King gave Diggs one quick, worried glance, and then activated the comp system. In Diggs’ ear, he heard his teammate’s desperate voice, “Diggs is down. He needs medical attention now. Dawson is in the rafters, he’s got a rifle. He’s trying to kill us. Watch your six.”

“Dawson?” came Juarez’s voice.

King answered quickly, as he did a cross roll and ducked behind a crate. “Confirmed. He’s moving to the south. I think I nicked him with a bullet. He got me. Diggs is hit in the stomach. Dawson is hostile. Approach as a threat.”

King dropped to his side, using his arm on his non-injured side to begin pulling himself toward Diggs. A bullet chinked into the ground and through concrete less than 2 inches from King’s face. King scrambled back against the crates. “He’s gone high!”

Diggs lay there exposed, and suddenly he realized Dawson’s plan. He was going to use Diggs to draw out the rest of the team and pick them off one by one. Desperately he tried to make his arms work, anything so that he could crawl behind cover, but he couldn’t move.

Suddenly he heard a soft, feminine voice on his other side, and Diggs realized that his worst nightmare had just come to life.

Audra.