In the darkness, rusted pipes dripped brownish liquid. Sea wind howled through shattered portholes, and a bullet-riddled alarm box spat sporadic sparks, its dangling wires swaying with a bare bulb.
Outside the transport ship, storm clouds thickened. The only light came from lightning that occasionally ripped across the sky. The thunder felt distant, but the deck beneath their boots was already pitching and rolling hard.
"Storm's coming in hot."
Logan flicked open his silver Zippo with a sharp snap, thumb scraping the wheel.
A yellow flare bloomed at the stainless-steel spout, then a steady blue flame.
It danced in the cross-draft, throwing off the faint, warm smell of lighter fluid.
A SOLAG half-finger glove cupped it, moving slow. He brought the flame to the Marlboro Black Gold clamped between cracked lips. The blue fire kissed every strand of tobacco, turning the dark tip from scattered gold embers into a slow-burning eighth-teaspoon of molten honey.
He snapped the lid shut, lowered the gloved hand—cherry glowing bright—thick smoke veiling the lower half of his face under the ballistic helmet.
"Logan, kill the cigarette."
Across from him, Captain John Hastings leaned against the bulkhead, arms folded over the sling of his slung rifle. He gave the seated sergeant a flat look.
"Thermal'll pick you up from two klicks out, dumbass."
On the deck, Logan deliberately spread his legs wider, tilted his head back like he was savoring a cold beer, and dragged deep.
He finished the smoke in four heavy pulls, crushed it out between finger and thumb, stood, and keyed his mic right in John's face.
"Heat source gone. CODE 4. Out."
Hastings sighed—same old shit—freed one hand and flipped him the bird. Logan answered with both middle fingers.
John couldn't help a short laugh. Next to him, the machine-gunner "Django" launched into some obnoxious bebop scat, trying to stir the pot.
"Yo, Finn—you done yet or what?"
When the staring contest showed no sign of ending, Logan pivoted smooth as ever.
"Twelve seconds, ladies."
Finn answered in a thick London accent, screwdriver in reverse grip as he pried open the side panel of the "intel core." He snapped the magnetic lead into the USB port, plugged the Cottonmouth device, powered it up.
The three men lounging by the window grabbed bulkhead and shuffled over.
"Eight seconds."
Inside the Cottonmouth, the RF module pushed the server's MAC and drive serials to Finn's laptop, then reached back to the pre-set C2 for the one-time key.
"Captain, need a hand."
"Happy to oblige, kid."
John slotted a second Cottonmouth—this one with onboard SSD—into another port and started brute-force mirroring the encrypted partitions.
"Five, four, three, two…"
"Done."
Center screen went solid blue with a small white checkmark. Beneath it, six-pixel-high cyan text, barely readable:
COTTONMOUTH ACTIVE
1.4 seconds later—black screen, standby.
Finn, one wired earbud in, woke the encrypted tactical suite with a swipe of the trackpad.
A slowly rotating minimalist blue wireframe globe appeared, like 3D latitude and longitude lines.
He clicked the new node on the left, opened live file view.
Tiny white dots drifted across the surface—each one a cracked and downloaded file.
FILES ACQUIRED: 47 → 48 → 49…
When the globe was fully covered, it flashed once, shattered into light particles, and vanished. Almost simultaneously, larger text scrolled past:
TOTAL CONTROL
"Here we go."
Next frame—stacked intel images and decrypted files.
"The buyers for this shipment."
John and the team crowded the screen, talking it over.
Buyers are in the Almu Railway DMZ—post-war neutral strip, abandoned. Looks like a no-name, but the zone's actually run by a private military outfit. Plan is to move the cargo to port, then emplace the weapons on "Sawtooth" heights.
No face-to-face with the buyers or any of the three middlemen?
OPSEC's tight, Captain. Merc identities are easy to spoof.
Good news—we can run this op under false flag.
Oh, and the middleman's callsign is kinda funny.
Vita? What kind of bullshit handle is that.
Doesn't look local from the photo. Johnny, that name sounds like some old-school Balkan bitch.
Yeah, no fixed location. Call logs trace back to "Crossroads."
Told you, Finn.
Your gut's never wrong, Sergeant, but that middleman's not our primary. Once we get the warrant, another team picks her up.
Tch. Lucky bastards get to kick back.
Listen up, Gray Horse Two—our job is to infiltrate the DMZ, pose as the buyers with forged creds, complete the hand-off, go deep, and locate Zakharov.
As for that middleman—she can run, she can hide.
But one day, Gray Horse is gonna find her… and every last motherfucker on that transaction chain is gonna pay for getting greedy.