Chapter 12 - Ambush at Blackwood Ridge
The high-intensity halogen spotlights hit the cavern mouth with the sudden, violent brilliance of twin suns.
“Daniel Miller! Marcus Vance!” A amplified megaphone voice rolled across the ravine, echoing off the wet granite cliffs. “This is the Blackwood Tactical Enforcement Unit. You are surrounded by thirty armed officers. Step out of the adit with your hands linked behind your heads. You have sixty seconds to comply!”
Inside the dark shaft, Miller and Marcus pressed their backs against the rough stone wall.
Through the tangle of blackberry briars at the cave’s mouth, Miller counted the silhouettes. Four heavily armored tactical vehicles were parked in a half-circle along the muddy logging trail eighty yards below. At least twelve operators in full black Kevlar were advancing through the hemlocks, moving in pairs with suppressed carbines held at the low ready.
Behind the center armored carrier stood Captain Raymond Henderson, wearing a heavy waterproof tactical parka, holding a combat radio in one hand and a high-caliber sidearm in the other.
“They’re not here to take prisoners, Daniel,” Marcus whispered, gripping the heavy iron crowbar he had scavenged from the mine floor. “If we walk out with our hands up, they drop us on the gravel and write up a report claiming we attempted to charge the perimeter.”
“They don't know the layout of these shafts,” Miller whispered back, his mind calculating angles with rapid tactical clarity. “This mine isn't a dead end. The old logging maps showed a ventilation drift that breaches the upper ridge forty yards above the tree line.”
“Can Ares make the climb?” Marcus asked.
Miller looked down at the dog. Titan stood tense, muscles rippling under his sable coat, his eyes darting between Marcus and Miller, ready to move on instinct.
“He can climb anything,” Miller said. “Marcus, take the upper drift. Get to the logging highway on the south side. I’ll draw their center line toward the main shaft.”
“No,” Marcus snapped, catching Miller by the collar of his jacket. “I spent four years watching people die for my mistakes. We don't split up. We move as a unit.”
Miller looked at him, then nodded once. “Alright. Then we execute the breach drill.”
He turned to the dog, dropping to one knee. Miller held out his palm, pointing toward the heavy brush flanking the left side of the cave entrance.
“Ares, Voran!”
The Malinois didn't bark. He surged through the briars like a missile, tearing across the rocky scree of the ravine. His low, dark profile blended perfectly with the wet scrub and granite boulders.
“Movement on the left!” a tactical operator screamed, swinging his rifle toward the rustling brush. “Target is mobile! Fire!”
A storm of suppressed automatic fire chewed through the blackberry bushes, sending shredded leaves and splintered rock spraying into the air.
While the left flank was completely fixated on the dog’s decoy run, Miller and Marcus exploded from the mouth of the mine, sprinting toward the rocky outcropping on the high right ridge.
“There they are! Right flank! Right flank!” Henderson roared over the radio. “Kill the convict! Don't let him reach the timber!”
Two tactical operators pivoted, raising their carbines toward Marcus’s back.
From the dense shadows above an eight-foot boulder, Titan descended like a thunderbolt. He struck the first operator squarely between the shoulder blades, driving the man face-first into the jagged limestone. The second shooter tried to clear his barrel, but Marcus closed the distance in two strides, swinging the heavy iron bar with devastating precision into the operator’s forearm, sending the carbine spinning into the mud.
“Ares, heel!” Marcus shouted.
The dog disengaged instantly, leaping over the fallen operators and falling into a dead sprint behind Marcus and Miller as they crested the rocky ridge.
CRACK.
A high-powered rifle shot echoed from the hood of the center armored vehicle eighty yards below. Henderson had braced his personal sniper rifle across the steel bull-bar.
The round tore through the fleshy part of Marcus’s upper left shoulder.
Marcus stumbled, a sharp gasp tearing from his throat as bright arterial blood splattered across the wet pine needles. His knees buckled, and he began to slide down the steep, muddy embankment toward the lower trail.
“Marcus!” Miller lunged backward, grabbing Marcus by the collar of his torn prison jumpsuit, digging his boots into the crumbling soil to halt the slide.
Below them, five tactical operators were scrambling up the ravine, their boots tearing through the underbrush, closing the distance to thirty yards.
“Leave me, Daniel,” Marcus wheezed, his face turning pale gray as blood soaked the orange fabric of his sleeve. “Take the drive... get to the press conference...”
“Nobody gets left behind!” Miller snarled through gritted teeth. He hauled Marcus up by the collar, throwing the wounded man’s right arm over his shoulder.
Titan turned back toward the advancing operators. The dog didn't retreat. He stood squarely on the narrow ridgeline path, his teeth bared in a terrifying snarl, his ears pinned flat against his skull, holding the entire squad at bay with a wall of sheer ferocity.
“Ares! Protect!” Miller yelled.
Titan lunged forward three paces, snapping furiously at the lead operator’s face mask, forcing the squad to drop into defensive crouches behind the hemlock trunks. Those three seconds bought Miller the time he needed to drag Marcus over the crest of the ridge.
On the other side of the ridge sat an old county forestry truck, parked beside an unlocked maintenance shed, its keys hanging from an ignition tag left by a careless state surveyor.
Miller kicked the driver’s door open, shoved Marcus into the passenger seat, and whistled sharp and clear through his teeth.
May you like
Titan cleared the ridge in two massive leaps, diving through the open passenger window just as Miller gunned the truck’s V8 engine to life.
Behind them, Henderson reached the crest on foot, his face twisted in purple fury, emptying the remainder of his magazine into the rear tailgate of the fleeing truck as it crashed through the wooden forestry gate and roared down the asphalt toward the city skyline.
