Defy The Alpha(s) - Chapter 592
Chapter 592: Only The Beginning
“Hey, what are you doing back there!” the guard bellowed.
At once, the five men scattered like cockroaches.
“Stop!” the guard roared, already on his radio. “Targets located! All units converge on Warehouse A, East Rack! Device located! Code Red! Timer at Ten! Repeat, timer at Ten! Move!”
“Spread out!” the leader snapped to his crew and they bolted in five directions.
Sirens came to life immediately, a harsh female voice echoing through the building. “Attention all personnel: this is not a drill. Evacuate Warehouse A immediately. Proceed to Muster Point North. Do not use the east bay exits.”
Workers dropped their clipboards and scanners, with some abandoning their carts. What followed next was screaming, as chaos broke out.
Ace Storm hit the rolling door at a dead sprint with a dozen wolves behind him. “Security Teams A and B, on me! Ralph, lock down the south dock! Bomb unit, to East Rack now. Everyone else, evac lanes clear, get the workers out!”
He jabbed a finger across the floor plan mounted near the entry. “Contain the device. Catch those traitors and no shooting near volatile lines. Do it clean, and fast. Our life is on the line.”
“Copy!”
The first guard who had discovered Patrick’s men was still chasing after the leader. Realizing the both of them hit the central aisle at the same time, he then cut hard left, hopped onto a narrow steel catwalk that ran above the aisle, and sprinted.
Seeing that, the werewolf huffed in annoyance and took the stairs three at a time. The saboteur cursed when he saw that but kept moving. Instead, he shoved a rolling ladder into the guard’s path, trying to slow him down.
The ladder clanged, toppled, and pinned the rail, but the guard vaulted it. Breathless and frustrated, the idiot human tripped over a hose, fell on his ass, and scrambled backwards.
“Stay down!” the guard commanded when he got to him but the leader instead swung a box cutter at him.
But werewolf were stronger, all the guard did was swat his wrist aside, drove a punch into the man’s jaw, and he fell to the ground, limp.
At once, the guard yanked the duffel off his shoulder and tore it open. Except there was no devices in there.
“Damn it!” He slammed his radio. “East floor, suspect down, no device. Be advised, two more devices are still in play.”
“Copy,” Ace’s voice snapped back. “Camera room, talk to me.”
In the control booth, a werewolf tech with headphones already on dragged video feeds up across four screens. “I’ve got them. Two moving, one north, one west.”
“Give me grid,” Ace said through gritted teeth. They were running out of time here.
“Runner One: Aisle C-17, heading south toward Dock Three. Runner Two: between B-12 and B-13, moving west, level two catwalk”
“A Team, cut off C-17 south to Dock Three,” Ace barked. “B team, level two catwalk B-12, pin him.”
On the west side, Runner Two turned a corner hard, and met two werewolf guards in grey tactical vests.
Without a word, they fired at him with their weapon, the crack of blue leaping through the air. The man jerked and hit the concrete face-first, convulsing.
The guards were on him in a heartbeat, searching him quickly but there was also nothing on him.
“Control, Runner Two is down,” the guard reported. “There’s no device on him.”
Ace growled into the communication device. “Find the rest. Bomb Unit, status.”
The bomb techs were on their knees at East Rack. One popped a hard case, and inside of it was non-sparking tools, dielectric gloves, fiber-optic scope, X-ray tablet. Another man held a handheld jammer; its tiny screen showed a spectrum of noise. The tech eased a mirror under the device, inspecting it carefully.
“This is not a standard bomb,” he replied calmly even though he was in the face of danger, “Homemade shell, pro internals. Anti-tamper loop on the clamp, dual power. It looks like shock and motion triggers both.”
“EMP?” Ace shot back.
“Negative. Local EMP risks our own controls and the chillers.”
Sweat formed on Ace’s forehead,”How much time do we have?”
The tech man swallowed, “Just a minute.”
While he spoke, the control room man’s voice cut back in. “Runner One is approaching Dock Three.”
“B Team cut him off,” Ace said. “Dock Three choke point. Note! Don’t shoot near the solvents. Disable only.”
“On it,” a calm voice answered.
“Also, west mezzanine, motion on the fire stairs, possible Runner Three,” the camera man added, his fingers tapping furiously across the keyboard. “Yes, Runner Three, heading south on the mezz, toward Aisle D-10.”
“C Team, intercept D-10 mezz,” Ace ordered, frantic now. “None of those traitors leave this building. It’s life or death.”
While all this was going on, the alarms kept speaking, “Evacuate Warehouse A. Proceed to Muster Point North” over and over until it became a mantra.
At Dock Three, Patrick’s man burst from between stacked pallets and sprinted for the roll-up door. The B team stepped out from behind a column at a perfect angle. They tackled him right to the floor, punching the daylight out of him. But they could not find any device on him.
The leader of the B Team spat into the radio. “Runner One in custody. No device.”
“Where is it?” Ace snapped.
“We don’t know sir,”
“Camera?” Ace demanded.
The tech swore. “I’ve got Runner Three, D-10 mezz. Wait, there, lower level, Aisle D-4, south end, he has something on him. He’s placing it under the cross-brace of the rack.”
Ace didn’t waste breath. “Nearest unit to D-4, south end, take him down. Now.”
A wolf in a grey vest came around the endcap at a dead run, and saw the man under the pallet. He kicked him on his side like a baseball player stealing home, smashed into the bastard, and drove him out from under the rack.
They rolled with the wolf guard coming on top. He hammered the man’s wrist against the concrete until his fingers opened, then snatched the device from him.
“Neutralizing!” he shouted into the device.
Immediately, he ripped the battery with his right hand while his left thumb jammed the safety pin back into the arming wheel, locking the striker. The tiny LED stuttered and died.
He exhaled shakily. “Control, second device secured, inactive. Runner down.”
“Copy, third device neutralized,” Ace said. He didn’t let his voice soften. “We still have the first. Bomb Unit?”
“We tried all methods but it’s too late. We’re out of time. East Rack, prepare for impact. Timer at five. Four…”
A chill went down Ace’s spine. “All teams, pull back from East Rack! Get hard cover! Repeat, take cover now!”
“Three…”
“Ace, move!” someone yelled next to him.
“Two…”
Ace dove behind the heaviest thing within reach which was the counterweight block of a parked forklift, a solid chunk of metal as big as a tombstone. He tucked his forearms over his neck. Wolves around him slid behind concrete bollards, steel columns, and pallets of stone.
“One.”
Just like that, the world blinked white.
Sound died and then slammed back in as a wall. The blast hit the warehouse like a truck. Heat punched Ace’s exposed skin.
The shockwave rent down the aisle, fluttering the plastic strip curtains, while glass burst somewhere in a high, glittering sheet.
Ace stayed down even as the fire caught and ran along a ribbon of solvent. Immediately, water from the sprinklers came on. It hissed and popped where it met chemical fire and made a choking white cloud. Emergency lights threw a red pulse through steam and smoke. The alarms kept going, voice now warped by heat: “…Evacuate… Evacuate…”
Ace lifted his head, his ears ringing, slightly dizzy. He tasted copper and burnt plastic.
Someone screamed “Medic!” and another else coughed so hard it sounded like he would cough up his lungs.
He tapped his radio with a shaking knuckle. “Roll call. A Team, B Team, Talk to me.”
“B Team intact,” a voice answered, ragged but clear. “Two minors, one human down but breathing.”
“A Team good,” another voice said. “One sprain. We’re up.”
“Bomb Unit?” Ace asked.
“Here,” the tech leader choked, coughing, his voice thready. “East Rack is gone. We got out at the nick of time. We’re okay.”
Ace put his back against the counterweight and stood. He could feel his heart in his teeth, and looked past the forklift.
The column where the device had been was no longer there, it was just empty air and a gaping void. The nearest row had collapsed into a glittering avalanche of twisted metal and shattered plastic.
Flames slithered along the base, devouring everything in their path. The heat surged in waves, stinging Ace’s skin even from a distance.
His throat tightened as he realized what was about to happen.
“Shit…” he breathed, horror flashing across his face.
And just as he feared, another explosion ripped through the air. The blast wave hit like a thunderclap, the roar drowning out every other sound as fire burst outward in a violent bloom of orange and black.
It had begun.