“We’re not going through the road,” Riker told his men, his voice a low, lethal hum. “We’re going over.”
He mapped the tactical strike in three minutes flat, assigning roles with the efficiency of a man who had survived worse odds in harder places.
“High positions first. Then the flanks. We have terrain advantage and surprise. We use both completely,” Riker instructed, making eye contact with each of his brothers. “Nobody fires unless I give the word. We’re not here to kill anyone. We’re here to take their phones, take their evidence, and find out exactly who hired them.”
He paused, staring at the screen. “Silas Vance is the man running this. I want Vance intact and talking.”
One of his brothers racked the slide of his sidearm and grinned in the darkness. “Rangers lead the way.”
The rail service trail was narrow, unlit, and not designed for eleven men moving in single file. But it put them on the ridge directly above the rail bridge in eighteen minutes of careful, silent movement.
Below them, the ambush team was still waiting. The drone feed showed their thermal signatures perfectly still, their confidence entirely intact. That confidence was about to expire.
The man watching from the bridge was focused entirely on the empty road. Riker moved down from the ridge like a shadow, reaching the sniper before the man even registered a shift in the air. What followed was quick, disciplined, and brutally quiet—close-quarters control designed to end resistance without fatal damage.
Riker lowered the unconscious man to the concrete and slipped off the mercenary's communication headset, pressing the earpiece to his own ear.
Below, he heard Silas Vance’s voice. It was calm and professional. “Position check,” Vance requested over the radio.
Riker said nothing. He simply waited.
Thirty seconds later, the Steel Saw Chapter descended from the darkness on both sides of the junction simultaneously. It wasn't a loud, chaotic brawl. It was executed with the organized efficiency of men who had rehearsed violence as a fine art.
The outer flankers were isolated and disarmed before they could even shout. The second elevated watcher was ripped from his perch. Down on the asphalt, the men near the SUVs suddenly realized that the meticulously planned trap they had set had become a cage for them instead.