The abandoned warehouse grew steadily closer.
It was a three-story brick-and-concrete building.
Dead vines clung to the exterior walls, tangled around the rusted fire escape.
Every window had been boarded up.
Only a faint trace of light leaked through a gap on the third floor, as if someone had deliberately tried to conceal it.
Nate stopped about fifty meters from the building and crouched in the shadow of a delivery van.
He watched.
At the front of the warehouse was a heavily rusted roll-up door that clearly hadn’t been opened in years.
To the right was a half-open steel door, with dim yellow light spilling through the gap.
On the left, a fire escape descended from the second floor.
The bottom section had been pulled up, but it was still within reach.
Left, center, right.
Three possible approaches.
Nate swept his gaze across the outside of the building, looking for security cameras.
None.
The warehouse was so old that it felt like a corner of the city modern civilization had simply forgotten.
That worked in his favor.
A place this outdated, without surveillance, probably didn’t have a particularly sophisticated security system either.
He listened carefully.
The low rumble of some kind of machinery drifted through the night air from the direction of the steel door.
Moving a little closer, he could faintly make out voices.
They sounded like they were arguing about something, with occasional bursts of laughter mixed in.
At least two men were near the entrance.
Nate let the Rattler hang against his side and summoned the Night Blade III from his Loadout.
Its black titanium nitride coating reflected almost no moonlight.
He held the blade in his right hand, thumb resting against the spine, feeling the cold metal beneath his skin.
Three throwing knives remained in the rig on his left forearm.
Keeping low, Nate moved through the shadows along the warehouse wall.
He carefully avoided broken concrete and shards of glass, placing each foot with deliberate precision.
The bottom rung of the fire escape hung about two meters above the ground.
Nate took a deep breath, clenched the knife between his teeth, and jumped.
One hand caught the lowest rung.
The fire escape gave a faint metallic creak.
Nate’s heart tightened.
While hanging in the air, he tensed his core and controlled his body’s swing as much as possible.
He waited.
No reaction.
No one had noticed.
Nate climbed up and stopped on the second-floor landing.
From there, he could see through the gaps between the boards covering the windows.
Staircases on both sides of the warehouse connected all three floors.
The first floor was a large open space filled with rusted industrial machinery and wooden pallets.
A bright overhead light illuminated the area, while a diesel generator roared in one corner, supplying power to the building.
Nate spotted three men.
One carried a rifle and paced near the entrance.
The other two sat on pallets playing cards.
The second floor contained old office partitions.
Most of the glass had been shattered, and several figures could be seen moving around inside.
The third floor was where the faint light came from.
He couldn’t see what was happening there.
There were more people than he’d hoped.
He needed to keep the initiative.
One floor at a time.
Nate withdrew from the window and silently slid back down the fire escape before circling toward the steel door on the right.
He needed a better entry point.
The door stood slightly open, its yellow light cutting a sharp line across the ground.
Nate pressed himself against the wall and moved closer.
The voices inside became clearer.
“…He said the guy would be here at nine. What time is it?”
“Eight forty. Relax, Ivan. You haven’t even finished your drink.”
“I’m not worried. This job’s just boring. Seventeen of us sitting around guarding two hostages while we wait for one rookie to show up? What’s there to worry about?”
“He’s good with a knife. Don’t underestimate him,” said the man on patrol.
“A knife? Better than this?”
One of the card players lifted the rifle hanging from his chest.
Two voices.
One low and rough, the other lighter and more casual.
They were roughly five meters inside, close to the wall.
Seventeen men total.
Three on the first floor.
Armed with rifles.
From the way they were dressed, they looked like mercenaries straight out of a movie.
All right.
Nate took a deep breath and thought back to all the action movies and shows he’d watched in his previous life.
He pulled the release ring with his middle finger.
A throwing knife slid from the forearm rig into his hand.
Before starting a firefight, he needed to reduce their numbers as much as possible.
Nate gently pushed the steel door with his left hand.
The hinges gave a tiny creak, but the generator drowned it out.
The opening widened just enough for him to slip through sideways.
Nate stepped inside.
The first thing he saw beneath the reasonably bright lights was the two men playing cards beside the wall.
One was bald and heavily built, wearing a tactical vest with a rifle Nate couldn’t identify hanging across his chest.
Short barrel, folding stock.
The other was thinner, dressed in a black hoodie, with a pistol tucked at his waist.
The bald man had his back to Nate.
The thinner man was facing him, but his head was lowered, completely focused on the cards.
Nate waited until the patrolman turned away and moved farther down the room.
Now.
Fast.
He rotated the throwing knife in his palm, pinched the tip between his thumb and index finger, then snapped his arm forward.
The moment the knife left his hand, Nate moved.
The target wasn’t the bald man.
It was the thinner mercenary farther away.
The throwing knife crossed the room in an almost invisible streak and buried itself precisely in the man’s throat.
With the knife’s enhanced power, it tore through both his windpipe and carotid artery.
His eyes flew wide open.
Blood sprayed across the bald man’s face.
At the same instant, Nate reached the bald mercenary from behind.
He drove the short blade up between the man’s ribs and straight into his heart.
His other hand clamped over the man’s mouth, smothering any sound before it could escape.
The bald man’s pupils lost focus.
His body sagged against Nate.
The thinner mercenary was still clutching his throat, mouth opening and closing as he tried to make a sound.
Nate covered his mouth, grabbed the throwing knife lodged in his neck, and drove it in and out twice.
The man’s body went limp.
Nate supported both corpses against himself.
Then he yanked it free and threw it.
The blade buried itself in the back of the patrolman’s skull.
He didn’t make a sound.
His knees hit the floor first, then his body slowly slid down the wall.
Nate lowered the other two bodies carefully to the ground.
Barely a sound.
His eyes passed over the three corpses, their eyes still open.
He felt no discomfort.
He was gradually getting used to blood and death.
Fourteen left.
Nate wiped the blood and tissue from the blade on the patrolman’s clothes before returning it to his Loadout.
Then he pulled the throwing knife from the thinner man’s throat and wiped that clean as well.
The constant roar of the generator covered much of the noise he made.
Nate raised the Rattler hanging at his side.
The T-2 was already switched on, its 2 MOA red dot glowing clearly in his field of view.
He moved toward the second floor.
The second level was open, darker than the first, and cluttered with scrap metal and machinery that formed natural lanes and cover.
Nate slipped through the shadows between them.
Two men were visible ahead, slightly to the right of the warehouse’s center, facing toward the stairs.
An LED work light hung above them, stretching their shadows across the floor.
One was a large, heavily bearded man.
His ballistic helmet had been tossed aside.
The other was younger and still wearing his helmet.
Both held AR-15s equipped with vertical foregrips and holographic sights.
Nate crouched behind a rusted stamping press.
About thirty meters.
The Rattler’s muzzle settled on the back of the bearded man’s head.
With the suppressor and .300 BLK subsonic ammunition, the rifle’s report wasn’t much louder than an air gun.
Combined with the roar of the generator downstairs, the shots themselves would be difficult to hear.
The impact was another matter.
So was the sound of a body hitting the floor.
He needed to eliminate both men almost simultaneously.
Thirty meters.
They were standing close together.
With a rifle, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Nate studied the area around them.
Behind the bearded man was a stack of empty oil drums.
Beside the younger man was a brick wall.
If he shot the big guy first, what would the younger one do?
Probably raise his rifle and fire toward Nate’s general position.
Nate took a deep breath and raised the Rattler.
Pfft.
The suppressed shot was barely audible.
The younger man was the first target.
The .300 BLK round cut through the air with a faint hum.
It struck him directly in the eye.
Nate shifted the muzzle.
Pfft.
Blood sprayed.
The bearded man’s body pitched forward, and his head slammed hard into the metal table in front of him.
Clang!
Nate frowned.
The man’s body had blocked his view.
He hadn’t seen the table.
The impact echoed through the empty warehouse.
Nate immediately ducked down into the shadow of a pallet and listened.
Silence.
Then voices came from somewhere else on the second floor.
“What was that?”
“Go check.”
Heavy, measured footsteps followed.
Two people.
And they were getting closer.