Chapter 221
[ 508 words ]
Chapter 221:
Finch gently laid Caroline down in the center of the massive king-sized bed. He pulled the heavy, dark velvet duvet over her shoulders, turned off the main lights, leaving only a dim floor lamp glowing, and silently backed out of the room.
He closed the door and immediately stationed two heavily armed Romero guards in the hallway.
At that exact moment, on the other side of the planet —
In a covert, dust-choked forward operating base somewhere in the Middle East, the air smelled of cordite, diesel fuel, and dried blood.
Jarrod Romero sat on a metal folding chair inside a dimly lit command tent. He wore full combat gear, his tactical vest covered in a thick layer of pale dust. His face was smeared with grease and dirt, and a dark shadow of stubble covered his jaw. He had been awake for forty-eight consecutive hours, leading a brutal, high-casualty extraction mission. His right arm was held rigidly against his side, the shoulder braced in a compact field splint beneath his combat shirt — a silent concession to an injury that refused to heal.
He stared blankly at a map on the table, his brain numb with exhaustion, listening to a junior officer drone on about casualty reports.
𝖳𝗁оu𝘀an𝗱s o𝖿 𝘳𝖾𝘢d𝗲rs o𝗻 𝗀𝖺𝘭𝗻𝗼𝗏𝖾l𝗌.𝗰о𝘮
On the metal table beside his elbow, a ruggedized tactical tablet suddenly vibrated with violent intensity. The screen flashed a brilliant, blinding red.
Jarrod’s head snapped toward it. The tablet was linked to the encrypted surveillance net Bell was running out of the penthouse. If it was lighting up now, something had gone catastrophically wrong.
He grabbed the tablet and read the incoming priority-one alert.
ALERT. HOSTILE INCURSION ATTEMPT AT ALEXANDRIA RESIDENCE. THREE UNIDENTIFIED SUSPECTS. TARGET RELOCATED TO ROMERO ESTATE BY FINCH. BELL MAINTAINING PENTHOUSE PERIMETER.
The words hit Jarrod’s brain like a defibrillator pad.
The exhaustion vanished instantly. A wave of pure, homicidal, terrifying killing intent exploded out of Jarrod’s body. The physical drop in temperature in the tent was palpable. The junior officer stopped talking mid-sentence, taking a frightened step back.
Jarrod stood up. The metal folding chair screeched against the dirt floor and tipped over.
He didn’t say a word. He turned and walked directly toward the tent flap.
“Colonel Romero!” the base commander shouted, standing up from his desk. “The mission debrief is not concluded! You are not dismissed! If you walk out that door, you are AWOL!”
Jarrod stopped and slowly turned his head. His eyes were completely black, devoid of any human reason. He looked at the commander.
“If my wife gets a single scratch on her inside that house,” Jarrod said, his voice a low, demonic rasp that made the hairs on the commander’s arms stand up, “I am going to fly back here and burn the Pentagon to the ground.”
Jarrod turned his back on the commander. He reached across his body with his left hand and ripped the heavy Velcro straps of his tactical vest open, shrugging the weight off his left shoulder first, then carefully sliding the rig down his immobilized right arm. He let the expensive gear crash into the dirt.
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