“We were misled,” Anton muttered between clenched teeth. “They were not
“No, they weren’t.”
“So much death, Yuri. We lost—”
Anton’s head snapped forward, and Yuri was soon coated in a warm, viscous fluid. As the blood froze to the right side of his exposed face, Yuri turned and looked at his partner. Anton’s forehead now sported a two-inch wide, ragged hole. It was an exit wound from a rifle round.
They’d been followed.
Yuri dropped the lifeless Anton to the ground and swung his rifle up to meet his friend’s killer head-on. But the only thing he found was a pinching feeling… followed by a searing pain. Yuri dropped his weapon and stumbled back. His hand went to his neck.
He’d been shot in the throat.
His attacker was nowhere to be seen.
Yuri staggered back just as the command tent’s entrance opened. A surprised Grigoriy caught him as he fell and quickly dragged him inside as additional projectiles also entered.
“What happened?” Grigoriy asked, now slathered in his man’s gushing blood.
Yuri gripped Grigoriy’s shoulder and pulled himself closer to his team leader. More gunfire erupted outside. Grigoriy’s remaining men had leaped into battle against the unknown force.
“Yuri!” Grigoriy shouted. The dying mercenary blinked his eyes back open.
Unable to speak, he mouthed, “Betrayed.”
Yuri’s eyes glazed over, and his breathing ceased.
“The Russian team has been neutralized,” Emil reported, holding his satellite phone close to his ear. “What should we do with the inbound three-man team?”
The white-clad Sixth Seal forward team had been lying in wait for the surviving mercenaries to return to their camp for over an hour. They needed all loose ends taken care of. Two men had escaped the botched attack on the LC-130. Those two men had just arrived on site moments ago.
“
“What if they discover the entrance to the Underworld before us?”
Henri laughed. “
“And if there is no gas?”
The commander didn’t reply right away.
“
“Yes, we will.”
“
The Sixth Seal strike team leader looked at the grounds outside the campsite. Antarctica had already swept away their tracks.
“Yes, sir. When will you be joining us?”
“
Emil understood what he meant. There were survivors back at the LC-130. Henri had been keeping a close, watchful eye on the situation. They had hoped that there’d be no survivors at all, but the three operatives had proved very capable against overwhelming odds. Still, the Sixth Seal outnumbered them by five-to-one between the two teams present on the continent.
“Very good, Commander. See you then.”
“
“My faith in the Sixth Seal has never been a question.”
“
Emil Becker grinned. He knew his commander better than most. Emil and Henri had both loyally served under Ulrich Krause for nearly twenty years and in a number of capacities. Most recently, Emil had been training operatives for combat back home in Germany, high in the snowy Alps.
While they preferred to run missions like this, Henri and Emil also oversaw operations centering on corporate and political espionage and straightforward assassinations. The one constant between them all was the continued progress and triumph of the Sixth Seal and all its affiliates.
If a politician unknowingly threatened one of Tobias Krause’s silent partners, then a small team was sent in. If a Fortune 500 tech giant attempted to purchase one of the Sixth Seal’s IT companies, then a fake story would be leaked to kill the buyout.
The Antarctic cold stung, but it also focused Emil. It focused him on their endgame. Heinrich Himmler and Dietrich Krause’s vision for the world had always been a beautiful one. With the revelation that the fabled Underworld might have actually survived, then Emil was thrilled to be on location and at the forefront.
