11:35 pm
The Farm
Dante had just finished with his latest sketch and laid the book on the table next to his bed, getting ready to turn in and get some sleep. Suddenly, the alarm on the smart watch Simon gave him went off. Knowing the signal meant there was a security breach at the farm, Dante sprung into action and was dressed and out the door, duffle bag slung over his shoulder, in less than a minute. He quickly met up with Simon in the Ops center where all of the monitors were streaming live footage all around the farm. Simon had used the same style of perimeter monitoring system he had used to monitor the stations that were working on the missile defense system where Simon first came across Tango. He had added some new features, including radar which now showed 8 figures parachuting toward the farm. At the same time, 3 vehicles were approaching the lone road leading to the farm. Simon quickly activated the countermeasures they had placed along the road and watched at the first vehicle disintegrated into a cloud of black smoke. The 2 remaining vehicles swerved to either side of the explosion and were quickly rendered useless when the small charges they had placed along the side of the roadway went off disabling both remaining vehicles. Several men exited the vehicles and Simon looked over at Dante.
“You take the west side and I’ll head east and we’ll meet in the middle. Non-lethal, we need to find out who is pulling their strings.” He clicked a few more keys and as they were heading to the exit, Simon put his hand on Dante’s arm and both men stopped and looked into each other’s eyes. Simon squeezed his arm and said,
“This is it Dante, they fucked with our family and it’s time. You are the most capable person I have ever worked with and I love you. Go do what you were born to do.” Both men nodded at each other and exited the Ops center. Dante quickly headed to the west side of the property and saw several dark shapes above him and he also saw movement on the ground ahead.
When they had first started setting up security at the farm, they had anticipated a possible attack and had created several defensive hides. Dante made his way up the large tree with his tranq rifle. In the next several seconds, he fired off several quick shots at the incoming paratroopers and 4 of them didn’t move after hitting the ground and crumpling into a pile. The other 4 quickly dispersed and began firing on Dante’s position. Quickly, Dante rolled backward and dropped to the ground, silently, using the climbing harness that was rigged to the tree. Sounds of automatic rifle fire could be heard towards the east as Dante quickly grabbed his blow gun and silently crept through the woods, night vision goggles in place. Up ahead he saw 3 figures moving in standard cover formation towards his position and he noticed that they were wearing night vision goggles as well. Waiting until they were within 20 yards, Dante removed his goggles and threw a flash bang grenade right in front of the group. Once he heard the charge go off, he quickly put his goggles back on and dropped all 3 where they stood with one of his special darts while they were disoriented from the flash.
Dante was scanning beyond the 3 men for the 4th he knew was out there when he felt a white hot pain rip across his left arm. He spun around with the impact and dove to the ground, rolling in the direction the shot came from. He quickly found cover under some brush and waited silently. Several seconds later, he heard a slight noise coming toward him. Dante watched as the figure passed right in front of him and he sprung from the ground, slicing the man’s femoral artery on the way up and embedding his knife in the man’s right shoulder. The gun dropped instantly to the ground and Dante had him cuffed in the heavy wire ties he carried with him less than 7 seconds later. After quickly trussing up the rest of the paratroopers, who were all incapacitated from the tranq gun or the special darts, Dante transmitted the all clear to Simon and started making his way toward his position.
Before he could see him, Dante received the all clear back from Simon. When he approached the eastern side of the property, Simon was just finishing up securing what Dante counted as 7 other soldiers. It was obvious that Simon had used more aggressive methods to take out the soldiers as several were bloodied and at least a couple were lying in the grass unconscious, maybe permanently from the look of at least one of them. Simon smiled up at him as he approached and when he got close enough for him to see the blood on his arm, his expression changed immediately,
“You’re hit!” He said as he approached and took stock of the wound. Dante tried to play it off, but the truth was that his arm felt like someone lit it on fire and then tightened it down in a vice.
“It’s nothing, only a flesh wound” Trying to sound tough for Simon. A small smile crept up the corner of Simon’s mouth and he put his arm around Dante and led him back toward the house to take care of the wound.
“I know it is, but if it gets infected we’ll both have to answer to Nikki”. Dante caught the quick look Simon gave him out of the corner of his eye when he realized what he just said and that Nikki wasn’t inside waiting on them.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. We have a lot of work to do so let’s get this taken care of and then deal with all of them” Dante replied as he cast his gaze across the bodies laying on the ground.