The door up onto the raised concourse was locked, so one of the mercenary team set a charge and they all stacked up on the wall to blow it. Darnell, at the back save for one soldier who was watching their six, tried to raise the Jotunheim again. Icy wind and flurries of snow whipped at him from all directions. His gloved fingers may as well have been blocks of wood as they fumbled with the sat phone.

“Hangar 147, come in. This is Tyreese Darnell of Tamerlane GOC. I have orders from HQ - do not take off, I repeat DO NOT take off. Please confirm this command.”

All he could hear was warbling static and beeps on the line, from whatever appeared to be jamming the signal. Nothing came back from the Jotunheim.

The charges went off with a muffled *FUMP*. The metal doors flew off their hinges and disappeared inside, closely followed by the Israeli team’s point man.

Inside was the bottom of a stairwell, with a desk in front of them that the doors had just destroyed. A uniformed woman crawled out from behind the wreckage holding a large socket wrench. Upon seeing them, she shouted “No no no!” and ran towards them holding her hands out. The first soldier put two bullets in her chest and she clattered backwards dead.

“Clear.” He declared as the rest of the team spilled inside and began scaling the stairs. Darnell swore upon seeing the dead body and looked around for security cameras. Thankfully, he could see none. While these mercs were masked and had no discernible markings, he was barefaced and easily recognisable. The last man pushed him toward the stairs to prevent them from becoming split up.

“Alright alright! I’m going.”

They climbed the stairs in silence, with all guns at the ready. After a few moments they reached another set of doors. They stacked up on either side of it again. Ezra tried the handle - it opened an inch. He looked through the crack. Then he nodded at the woman opposite him and she took out a stun grenade from her tactical vest. Ezra opened the door a bit more and she armed it and threw it out of the gap. A few bullets thudded into the metal door on the other side before a loud bang and a flash stopped them. It was so strong that it stung Darnell’s eyes even from the back.

The Israelis opened both doors and proceeded through, leaving Darnell peeping out from down the stairs a little way. Gunfire and shouting erupted on the concourse; tracer rounds whizzed by from both directions, with some pinging off the cargo crates and forklifts that littered the area. Darnell was pushed forward to take cover by the door so the guy in the back could provide cover. As he began moving, he saw one of the mercs take what looked like a shotgun volley to the chest. All the equipment on the front of her vest exploded in a shower of sparks and she collapsed on the floor. Ezra instantly moved in front of her while the guy by Darnell rushed over to grab her. Darnell was shouting and screaming and pointing without quite knowing what he was saying. Somehow, there was a cloud of smoke wafting into his field of view from the left.

“Move to me, Mr Darnell!” Ezra shouted, motioning with one hand to a pile of boxes near him. Tyreese finally moved out onto the concourse - three of the mercs had assumed a defensive formation to cover both directions while the fourth prepped a canister of biofoam while crouched over their downed teammate. Darnell spotted more than one dead body in his field of vision, but he didn’t stop to look at them.

“Jesus fuck. Who are these guys?”

“You tell me, Mr Darnell. They’re not amateurs.” Ezra responded. There was more gunfire from close by. Inside the cloud of smoke that was spreading across one entire side of the concourse.


“They must be in there!” Tyreese pointed.