"—Wake up!"
Irritation and anxiety clawed at his throat. His breaths came too shallow to draw air, a high-pitched ringing filled his ears—like a chorus of badly tuned bagpipes.
"—Eyes on me, Captain!"
The stretcher slammed onto the gurney frame. He vaguely felt the jolt beneath him, heard the squeak of four casters rolling across the floor.
In his tunneling vision, Logan Lerman lifted the FTHS helmet system rigged with night-vision goggles and kept pressure on his thigh. His battle buddy's arterial blood had soaked the sergeant's tactical gloves until they gleamed black and slick.
"Hang in there, Johnny!"
He locked eyes for a moment with the grim-faced doctor, who then pulled the wounded man's sidearm from the plate carrier. An IV bag swayed from the pole as they rushed down the corridor. The fluorescent ceiling lights bleached everything blue-white. Through the plastic diffusers, the tubes stretched into seven swollen, merging lines as they raced backward.
"Don't you fucking pass out on me, Captain!"
Seeing his eyes beginning to close, Logan shoved the gurney harder. Trash cans toppled in their wake; he shouldered past white-coated staff, sending stainless trays crashing, gauze rolls scattering across the floor.
"—Heart rate crashing!"
Across from Logan, a medic who'd nearly tripped shouted to his partner. The straining sergeant glared at them venomously.
"Tourniquet's loose—what the hell are you doing?"
He reached for the wound, swapped out the soaked gauze for fresh, and pressed down hard to slow the bleeding.
"—Sir, you need to step back!"
Logan was finally blocked by orderlies in the hallway. He seized one medic's arm, forcing him to compress the open wound, but in the chaos of shoving bodies he lost his grip on the bed. Shouted orders for equipment drowned out the frantic footsteps.
"Fuck—don't you go out on me, Captain!"
Shouldered aside by the swarm of medics, Logan roared at the captain whose pupils were already blown, only then realizing that—still burdened by twenty-plus pounds of kit after the sprint—he was running on fumes.
The team slowed as the monitor's alarm eased. They stripped off his plate carrier. Electrodes were rubbed together until the defibrillator chirped its high-pitched ready tone.
Deep-blue nitrile gloves clamped the titanium paddles and pressed them to his chest.
The shock slammed through his heart muscle—body rigid, eyes snapping open.
John Hastings bolted upright in bed, heart pounding, throwing off the covers. Another nightmare, he thought.
White curtains billowed in the cool breeze. He tugged the pull-chain on the bedside lamp, bathing the attic room in dim amber light. He glanced toward the half-shaded loft window. Far off, a few flashes of lightning—but no thunder yet.
He rubbed his face, unsettled by a strange sensation, and pulled the curtain aside. Two stretched SUVs with high beams on were descending the mountain road, engines nearly silent.
John frowned, squinting into the distance.
Two unmarked black vehicles. From the aggressive cornering and tire scrub, it was clear they were heading straight for the villa at the foot of the slope.
The Doppler-shifted engine note finally reached him as both vehicles braked hard down the final grade, crushing dry leaves under their tires.
They stopped in front of the house, lights still blazing. Two teams in black combat kit—heavy plate carriers, full armor—piled out of the sliding doors.
John noted the uniform loadout: G36 rifles and MP5 submachine guns. German military-spec full-auto. Not SWAT, not regular ground forces—private contractors or a transnational crew's muscle.
No time to overthink it. He swung out of bed, stayed low, padded barefoot to the gun safe. He punched in his birthday backward on the keypad.
From the bottom compartment he pulled a TTI G43X Combat Carry and two 15-round extended magazines, tucking them into the waistband of his gray sweatpants. He grabbed a surefire light and moved silently toward the east-wing stairs.
"—Lights out… advance."
Five heavily kitted operators slipped through the rear door, killed their weapon lights, and flipped down dual-tube NVGs. The team leader raised his G36 and issued a low order, thick foreign accent.
John couldn't immediately place nationality or affiliation. He crouched in the shadow near the stairwell, staying out of the stark headlight beams spilling into the house.
Right hand racked the bronze slide on the 43X to confirm a round in the chamber; left hand dialed the strobe to max, thumb on the paddle switch.
"—Akcija—Akcija—Akcija!"
Croatian. John recognized the team leader's command. That was unexpected—outsourced mercs, maybe, or a new player showing their hand.
Didn't matter anymore. Armed intruders in his dwelling—castle doctrine applied.
From the shadows, John angled his view downstairs: the lead operator, wearing Ares dual-tube NVGs, closed on the stairs. First step, second, third… until the stack overlapped in his lane more than halfway.
John drew a slow breath, ready.
"—Check overhead."
The leader whispered. The stack pie-ed upward.
Suddenly a blinding overexposure bloom fried their tubes. The operators yanked off their NVGs—but too late.
From the stair corner, John dropped the overheating light and went two-handed on the pistol. In a low crouch he leaned out, dumping rounds downrange.
The operators, clawing at burning eyes, never saw the muzzle flashes blooming in the loft corner.
"—Fall back! Fall back!"
The leader, hit in the shoulder, dragged his crippled breacher off the railing and returned fire. The stack stumbled downward.
John sprinted to the opposite wall, pie-ing out to minimize exposure, using the angle to press the fight.
More operators caught center-mass and tumbled over the banister. The leader shoved his teammate down the stairs, went prone—his rear plate eating two vertical rounds from John.
The second man deployed a folding ballistic shield, angling it up the stairs toward John as he advanced, and triggered the integrated strobe array.
John fired one-handed to keep heads down, left arm snapping up to shield his eyes. As the flash faded he reacquired his two-handed grip, dumped the empty mag with his shoulder, and slammed home a fresh one.
He shoulder-checked the shield to upset balance, canted the 43X over the viewport—
Three fast rounds shattered the glass and ended the man behind it.
John ripped the shield away, posted up behind it to eat a short burst from two more operators. He discarded the smoking shield, rolled into cover behind a load-bearing pillar.
The leader scooped a dropped G36, racked it multiple times—stovepipe—then transitioned to his sidearm and mag-dumped toward John's position.
Click. John heard the slide lock back, exploded out, using the leader's body to mask his approach. He double-tapped past the leader's shoulder, shifted fire.
Two torso hits dropped the remaining pair. John slipped the leader's grab, scissored his legs for the takedown, landed a knee-on-chest pin.
Follow-up shot to center mass—threat stopped.
"—Target east wing!"
Shouted from the west side. John snatched an MP5, clamped it between his thighs, grabbed a fresh mag from a downed operator's rig, and reloaded one-handed. He came up running, posted behind a living-room pillar.
Five weapon lights swept the space behind him, illuminating the corkboard wall covered in intel printouts and photos—and the decanter of amber bourbon.
From behind the pillar, John charged the MP5's bolt. As the lights converged on his position he coiled, rolled out low, and hosed the stack with suppressed subsonic fire.
Across the living room, the operators broke formation. The muted thump-thump-thump of the MP5 and the wasp-like zip of rounds shredded table legs and couch upholstery. The decanter and glasses hit the floor, shattering; bourbon soaked into the dark carpet.
John dropped the empty SMG, posted back behind the pock-marked pillar.
Mag out, mag in, quick press-check.
During the brief lull as the remaining operators advanced, he reversed direction—leaned out the opposite side, Mozambique on the closest threat, stepped laterally while dumping controlled pairs, dropped another.
He slid forward into couch cover, low-crawled along the backrest to flank.
Using floor reflections to track positions, John blind-fired the 43X one-handed over the couch to drive the survivors toward the intel wall.
As both operators pre-aimed the couch's far end, John vaulted over it, landed in a knee behind the overturned coffee table.
He rose first on the nearer threat, transitioned to the second—using the body as cover against return fire—closed the gap, parried the last man's G36 with a shield-block elbow.
Flowing inside, he canted the 43X for two armor-piercing rounds through the plate gap, palm-heeled the throat, hooked a body shot to collapse balance, then shoulder-threw the man to the floor.
Clean disarm. John recovered into a solid two-handed grip.
Click.
The last round expended, the bronze slide locked back, venting heat through the blackened compensator.
John Hastings rose through sweat and cordite, stepping barefoot over the uninvited guests, breathing hard.
He dropped onto the sagging leather couch, watched tufts of stuffing drift in the breeze, and tried to slow his runaway pulse.
In the drafty silence, the familiar migraine arrived on cue. He pressed the heel of his hand to the base of his skull, grinding his teeth against the oxygen-starved vertigo.
Exhausted in body and mind, he let his hand fall and looked toward the floor-to-ceiling mirror—hoping, as always, to see himself.
In the cracked glass, Logan Lerman—clad head-to-toe in black kit—held John's empty TTI 43X, staring out at John.
In the mirror, Logan slowly raised the pistol.
Outside it, John mirrored the motion exactly.
"Easy, Captain."
Both men leaned in together, inhaling the sharp bite of gunsmoke from the same barrel.
"Remember anything?"
Logan's shadowed face spoke softly to the man before the mirror—yet his pupils reflected another John Hastings entirely.
Across the ruined living room, scattered weapon lights carved the floor into light and dark.
"Yeah… Logan."
Through the spider-webbed panoramic glass, John stood kitted in FTHS helmet and quad-tube NVGs, carbon-fiber plates and Kevlar sleeves, a pirate-flag IR patch on his back, adrenaline pen and tourniquets clipped to his rig.
"War might pause for a while…"
In the frozen interplay of light and shadow, John Hastings lifted his face to the mirrored self that had become him, answering with solemn gravity:
"But the fight lasts a lifetime."