Chapter 5 - The Raid That Went Wrong
Mouse’s head snapped up, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he listened to the encrypted comms channel he’d hacked into 10 minutes prior. The color drained from his face.
“Guys,” he said, his voice sharp. “We got a problem. Andrew hired four mercs out of Memphis. Ex-Delta, ex-Army SF. Real bad news. They’re 20 minutes out. Armed with AR-15s, body armor, flashbangs. Their orders: extract Jake, kill Daniel and Jax, make it look like a home invasion gone wrong. Andrew’s paying ‘em 100 grand each, plus a bonus if they bring him Emma alive so he can ‘deal with her himself.’”
The cabin went dead silent, then exploded into motion. Jax grabbed his rifle from his duffel, racking the slide. “How many entrances?”
“Front door, back door, two windows on the east side,” Rio said, already moving to board up the east windows with plywood they kept for hunting season. “Mouse, you got any cameras around the property?”
“Four,” Mouse said, pulling up the feeds on his laptop. “One at the end of the driveway, one on the front porch, two covering the woods on the east and west sides. They’re coming down the main road in two black Suburbans, no plates. ETA 12 minutes.”
Daniel grabbed his rifle, tucking extra magazines into his jacket, then knelt in front of Emma and Jake. “Listen to me. You two are going down into the root cellar under the cabin. It’s reinforced with cinder blocks. No one can get in there. Mia’s gonna go with you. You stay quiet, you stay down, no matter what you hear. Understand? No matter what. You don’t come out until one of us comes to get you.”
Jake’s lip trembled, but he nodded, clutching his stuffed rabbit tight. Emma grabbed Daniel’s hand. “Please be careful. Please.”
“Always,” he said, kissing her forehead. He helped Mia carry the cooler of medical supplies down into the cellar, pulling the heavy metal door shut behind them and locking it from the outside. Then he turned to the unit.
“Here’s the plan. Non-lethal first. We don’t wanna kill these guys unless we have to—feds are already on our side, we don’t need a murder investigation mucking things up. Jax, you take the west side of the woods. Rio, east side. I’ll hold the front porch. Mouse, you stay inside, man the cameras, tell us where they’re going. Doc, you’re on comms, relay everything Mouse says. Remember: these guys are pros. They’ll try to flank us, they’ll use flashbangs, they’ll try to draw us out. Don’t take the bait. We let ‘em get close, then we hit ‘em hard and fast. Got it?”
Everyone nodded, moving to their positions. Daniel crouched behind the old stone wall on the front porch, his rifle resting on the top, his eyes fixed on the end of the driveway. The woods were quiet, too quiet, the only sound the distant hum of the Suburbans getting closer.
Eight minutes later, the two black trucks turned into the driveway, their lights off, rolling slow. They stopped 50 yards from the cabin, and four men in black body armor stepped out, their faces covered with balaclavas, AR-15s raised. One of them held up a hand, signaling two men to go east, two to go west, flanking the cabin.
Mouse’s voice came over the comms units in their ears: “Two east, moving through the pines. Two west, using the oak trees for cover. The lead guy’s got a flashbang on his belt. Watch for it.”
The two east-side mercs crept up to the boarded windows, and Rio struck first. He fired a beanbag round from his shotgun, hitting the first merc square in the chest, sending him flying backward into a tree. The second merc spun around, firing a wild shot into the air, and Jax dropped him with a rubber bullet to the knee from 40 yards away. Both went down, groaning.
“Two down east,” Rio said over comms.
The two west-side mercs heard the shots, and the lead one pulled the pin on his flashbang, tossing it onto the front porch. It exploded with a deafening bang and a blinding flash, but Daniel was already rolling behind the stone wall, his eyes squeezed shut, his ears ringing. When he opened them, the two mercs were charging the front door, rifles raised.
Daniel stood up, firing two rubber bullets—one to each of their chests—sending them stumbling back. But the lead merc recovered fast, firing a real round at Daniel, the bullet grazing his left arm, tearing through his jacket and drawing blood.
“Daniel’s hit!” Doc yelled over comms.
From the root cellar, Jake heard the shot, heard Doc yell, and panicked. He pulled away from Emma, yanking the cellar door open and running up the stairs, his stuffed rabbit flying out of his hand. “Grandpa!”
“Jake, no!” Emma screamed, running after him.
The lead merc saw Jake, a cruel grin spreading under his balaclava. He dropped his rifle, reaching for the boy. “Got the kid! Let’s go!”
He grabbed Jake’s arm, yanking him toward the Suburban, and Jake did the only thing he could think of. He swung his grandpa’s old aluminum baseball bat—the one Daniel had given him for his seventh birthday, the one he’d been playing with on the cabin porch that afternoon—right into the merc’s left kneecap as hard as he could.
There was a sickening crack, and the merc screamed, letting go of Jake, collapsing to the ground. Jake scrambled backward, tripping over the porch step, and Daniel was there in two seconds, putting himself between Jake and the merc, his rifle pointed straight at the guy’s head.
“Touch my grandson again,” Daniel said, his voice so cold it could freeze hell over, “and I’ll blow your head off before you hit the ground.”
Jax and Rio ran up, tying the four mercs’ hands behind their backs with zip ties, disarming them, piling their guns on the porch. Mia ran out of the cellar, checking Daniel’s graze, wrapping it in gauze, while Emma pulled Jake into her arms, sobbing, checking him over for injuries.
“I’m okay, Mom,” Jake said, grinning through his tears, holding up his bat. “I hit him. I hit him real hard. Like you taught me in self-defense class.”
Daniel laughed, a rough, relieved sound, and ruffled Jake’s hair. “That’s my boy. Best swing I’ve ever seen.”
Mouse came out, holding his laptop, grinning. “Got the whole thing on camera. The mercs admitting Andrew hired ‘em, Jake hitting the guy with the bat, everything. Sent it straight to the FBI. They said they’re sending a SWAT team to Andrew’s house right now. He’s not going anywhere.”
One of the mercs—the lead guy, his knee swollen to twice its size—looked up at Daniel, his voice bitter. “You know who I used to work with? 1st SFOD-D. Delta. I thought you retired guys would be soft. Living in the past, drinking beer, telling war stories.”
Daniel knelt in front of him, his face hard. “We are soft. We didn’t kill you. If you’d touched that boy? We would’ve buried you in these woods and no one would’ve ever found your body. You got lucky today. Now—you’re gonna tell the FBI every single thing Andrew told you to do. Every detail. And if you lie? I’ll make sure your new cellmate in federal prison knows you used to be Delta. Guys like you? They don’t last a week in gen pop.”
The merc paled, nodding. “I’ll talk. I’ll tell ‘em everything. Just… don’t let ‘em put me in gen pop.”
By the time the FBI SWAT team rolled up to the Prescott mansion 45 minutes later, Andrew was drunk, half-crazed, waiting for his mercs to call with good news. When the front door crashed open, he stumbled to his feet, reaching for the gun in his waistband, but he was too slow. Two agents tackled him to the marble floor, slapping cuffs on his wrists, reading him his rights.
May you like
“Andrew Prescott, you’re under arrest for 17 counts of federal crimes, including attempted murder for hire, domestic assault, bribery, money laundering, and wire fraud. You have the right to remain silent…”
Andrew screamed, thrashing, as the agents dragged him out of his mansion, past his neighbors who’d come out to watch, past the news cameras that had showed up, past the life he’d built on lies and cruelty. The sun was high in the sky now, shining down on Belle Meade, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like justice had finally come to the neighborhood. (1,538 words)
