Chapter 35 - Blood in the Heartlands
The perimeter was five miles out from the Carter ranch.
The access road, usually flanked by pristine white horse fences and century-old live oaks, was now blocked by concrete Jersey barriers and an automated vehicle inspection station manned by private military contractors wearing sterile, unmarked black tactical gear. Their chest patches bore no national flag—only the interlocking triangles of the Obsidian Council.
"Thermal sweep shows eight hostiles at the checkpoint," Vance whispered, lying prone on a limestone ridge sixty yards away, his heavy-caliber suppressed anti-materiel rifle resting on a carbon-fiber bipod. "Two automated miniguns mounted on the guard shack roof. Infrared tripwires along the tree line."
"Take the turrets first," I ordered quietly, adjusting the zero on my customized assault rifle. "Simultaneous strike. We don't let a single distress pulse leave this perimeter."
"On your mark, Major."
"Mark."
Vance’s rifle let out a muffled, hydraulic *phut-clack*. A heavy tungsten penetrator slug disintegrated the optical sensor cluster of the primary minigun. A microsecond later, my own round shattered the receiver of the second turret.
Before the mercenaries on the ground could register the mechanical failure, Vanguard's assault team swept out of the cedar brakes like ghosts.
There was no shouting, no cinematic posturing. It was surgical, ruthless violence. Three suppressed rounds per target. Double-taps to the center mass, one to the cranial vault. Within eight seconds, the eight contractors lay collapsed in the dust of the driveway, their weapons falling silently onto the gravel.
I walked through the gate, my boots stepping over the red puddles expanding under the halogen floodlights.
"Sever the hardlines," I told Vance. "Deploy the directional jamming pods. For the next twenty minutes, this entire valley is a ghost zone. No satellite uplink, no radio, no automated distress signals."
"You're going in through the front door?"
"I was invited to a family barbecue," I said, my voice dead and cold. "It would be rude not to show up for dessert."
We advanced up the long, winding drive. The manicured lawns where my brothers had played football and where Jake had parked his fleet of European sports cars had been converted into a staging area. Armored troop transports were parked beneath the oak trees; high-gain satellite dishes stood planted in the pristine flowerbeds my mother had tended for three decades.
Through the tall French doors of the main manor, light spilled out onto the brick veranda.
Inside, standing in the center of the grand living room beneath the crystal chandelier, was Arthur Carter.
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He was not wearing his tailored Italian suit. His silk shirt was torn at the collar, his gray hair wild and unkempt, his face bruised where a heavy fist had recently struck him. Standing behind him, a heavy tactical pistol resting casually on the marble kitchen island, was Jake.
And sitting comfortably on the cream-colored sofa, an open leather-bound ledger resting in her lap as she calmly sipped tea from a porcelain cup, was our mother.
