The penthouse office had transformed. The luxurious leather chairs and polished oak desk were still there, but they were now surrounded by a web of technology that hummed with a quiet, deadly purpose. Multiple screens glowed on the walls, displaying satellite imagery, encrypted data streams, and financial market tickers that moved too fast for a normal person to read. Meeka O’Malley stood at the center of it all, a general in her war room, a glass of water untouched at her side.

  “Intel is confirmed,” Gema Banks’ voice was a calm, steady presence in Meeka’s ear and through the room’s main speakers. “The private military contractor is Aegis Tactical Solutions. Their primary training facility and headquarters is a decommissioned chemical plant in the Belgian countryside, ten kilometers outside Liège. They thought the remote location made them invisible. They were wrong.”

  On one of the screens, a high-resolution satellite thermal image resolved into a sprawling complex of dark buildings surrounded by a dense forest. Red heat signatures glowed within the main structures.

  “Caitlyn’s team is in position,” Gema continued. “They have confirmation that the entire Aegis leadership team is on-site for a quarterly review. The same men who sanctioned the hit on Tommy and Reese.”

  Meeka’s eyes were locked on the thermal images. “What about the other front?”

  Another screen flickered to life, showing Rory Delahunty in a separate, darkened room. The young accountant was surrounded by her own array of monitors, her face illuminated by cascading lines of code. She wore a headset, completely absorbed. “I have access to their primary holding accounts, Meeka,” Rory’s voice was soft, but carried the sharp edge of a diamond cutter. “Six banks, three continents. Aegis gets their payments through a shell corporation nested inside an Aethelred subsidiary. All I have to do is give the order, and the gowls be skint. By the time they figure it out, the money will be gone.”

  “Patience, Rory,” Meeka said, her voice low. “Wait for Caitlyn’s signal. We hit them everywhere at once. A body blow and a shot to the head.”

  She looked at the clock on the screen. It was 3:00 AM in Belgium. The witching hour.

  “Angel,” Meeka spoke into her private comm. “Are you green?”

  The reply was instantaneous, a whisper of static and a single, cold word. “Green.”

  Meeka took a breath. The pieces were in place. The trap was set. “Execute,” she said. “Execute on all fronts. Give them the Angel’s Due.”

  ***

  The rain fell in a cold, miserable drizzle, soaking the Belgian forest and turning the ground to mud. It didn’t matter. Caitlyn Doherty and her five-person team of Saighdiúirs moved through the trees like ghosts, their black tactical gear shedding water, their movements economical and silent. They had cut through the facility’s perimeter fence an hour ago, bypassing the electronic sensors with a targeted EMP burst that Gema’s team had triggered remotely from Boston.

  They reached the edge of the clearing. The main building was a three-story brick monolith, scarred with age and neglect on the outside. Inside, it was a state-of-the-art fortress. Two guards stood smoking under an awning near the main entrance, their assault rifles slung casually over their shoulders.

  Caitlyn held up a fist. Her team froze. She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then at the two guards. Two of her men, brothers from Galway who had been with the Clann since they were old enough to fight, peeled away into the shadows. Thirty seconds later, the two guards slumped to the ground, their cigarettes dropping into a puddle with a soft hiss. They never made a sound.

  No alarms. The approach was clear.

  “Command, this is Angel,” Caitlyn whispered into her throat mic. “We’re at the door. On your mark.”

  “Mark,” Meeka’s voice came back instantly.

  In her data haven in Boston, Rory typed a final command string and hit enter. On her screens, a dozen different processes bloomed to life.

  Simultaneously, at the Aegis facility, every light in the command center flickered and died. The backup generators kicked in with a groan, but the computer terminals remained dark. The local network was gone.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “We’ve lost all comms!” a frantic voice yelled in German from inside the building. “The system is completely offline!”

  That was Caitlyn’s cue. She kicked the side entrance door, the lock shattering under the force of her boot. Her team flooded in, moving with the fluid, lethal grace of a wolf pack. They didn’t shout. They didn’t waste motion. They were a force of nature.

  The first floor was a barracks. Half-dressed mercenaries scrambled for their weapons, their eyes wide with confusion. Caitlyn’s team moved through them with ruthless efficiency. They used suppressed pistols and knives. It wasn’t a firefight. It was an extermination. They weren’t there to kill soldiers; they were there to eliminate a threat. And to send a message.

  Caitlyn took the stairs two at a time, her rifle, sweeping every corner. Her target was on the third floor. The CEO of Aegis. A man named Klaus Richter, a disgraced former colonel in the German special forces. He was the one who had taken Aethelred’s money. He was the one who had sent his men to kill her family.

  She burst onto the third floor. It was a suite of offices. Three men in suits, the Aegis executive team, were trying to make calls on their useless cell phones. They looked up, their faces a mask of terror. Caitlyn ignored them. She knew which door was Richter’s.

  She kicked it open.

  Klaus Richter was standing behind his desk. He wasn’t a soldier anymore. He was a plump, middle-aged man in an expensive suit. But his eyes were still hard. He had a pistol in his hand, aimed at the door.

  He fired. Caitlyn was already moving, dropping to one knee as the bullet tore through the wall where her head had been. She brought her rifle up and squeezed the trigger. It wasn’t a burst of automatic fire. It was a single, precise shot.

  The round hit Richter in the shoulder, spinning him around and causing him to drop his weapon with a cry of pain. He collapsed against his desk, clutching his arm, blood pouring through his fingers.

  Caitlyn advanced into the room, her rifle still trained on him. Her team secured the hallway behind her, the brief sounds of struggle fading into silence.

  Richter stared at her, his face pale with shock and pain. Her helmet and face mask made her completely anonymous, a figure of pure menace.

  “Who… who are you?” he gasped in English.

  Caitlyn didn’t answer. She reached up and pressed a button on her comms unit, opening a direct, unencrypted channel. The only sound in the room was Richter’s ragged breathing and the faint crackle of the open line.

  “This is for the Golden Ailm ye feckin gobshite,” she said, her voice low and clear.

  Richter’s eyes widened in dawning horror. He finally understood. This wasn’t a rival company. This wasn’t a government raid. This was something ancient. Something…Tribal.

  On the other end of the line, in Cairo, Ali-Alistair Finch would be listening. Aethelred monitored all their contractors’ comms. Caitlyn was counting on it. This message wasn't just for Richter. It was for the man who paid him.

  She raised her rifle. "And for the O'Malley Clann."

  She fired one more shot.

  Then, she keyed her secure channel back to Boston. “Angel to Command,” she said, her voice completely flat. “Objective complete. Aegis is neutralized.”

  ***

  “Copy that, Angel,” Meeka’s voice was as steady as a surgeon’s hand. “Return to base.”

  On the screen, Rory’s work was done. The accounts were empty. The servers were wiped. Aegis Tactical Solutions no longer existed financially or digitally. Now, thanks to Caitlyn, they no longer existed physically.

  Meeka allowed herself a single, slow breath. The counter-strike was complete. It was brutal, total, and final. The message had been sent in blood and binary code. She looked over at Tommy, who had come to the command center from the pub, his face a grim mask. He watched the screens, watched the thermal signatures at the Belgian facility go dark one by one.

  He looked at Meeka, a new, somber respect in his eyes. “This is a new world, Meeka.”

  “It’s the one they gave us,” she replied.

  Ashley Kelley stepped into the room, her expression calm as always, but her eyes holding a sense of urgency. “The jet is fueled and ready for Cairo. Your flight plan is filed.”

  Meeka nodded. The first part of her war was won. Now she had to go to her brother. She had to ensure the second front was not lost. She walked from the command center, leaving Gema to oversee the cleanup and extraction. The tension in the room was gone, replaced by the cold, quiet hum of a job well done.

  As she strode toward the private elevator that would take her to the garage, Ashley fell into step beside her, holding out a tablet.

  “Gema’s team just broke through the last of Alistair Finch’s personal firewalls,” Ashley said quietly, so only Meeka could hear. “They used his panic over the Aegis blackout as a back door. We have his location. His real-time location. He’s not in London.”

  Meeka took the tablet. On the screen was a blinking red dot superimposed over a map. She recognized the streets, the curve of the river. The dread and fury she had held in check for hours coalesced into a single, sharp point of focus. Alistair Finch, the man who had tried to kill her family, the man who had destroyed Talibi, the puppet master behind it all, was closer than she could have ever imagined.

  The blinking red dot was less than a mile from Reese’s last known position.

  “He’s in Cairo,” Meeka said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. “Have Finn and the Hit Squad meet me at the private jet.”

  Ashley just nodded, her silence a grim confirmation. The war wasn't over. It had just found its endgame.