Dogs of War

Chapter 16

The night lays dark across the landscape and I crawl across the leaf litter, paws treading gently and barely rustling the dead and dry leaves underfoot. Ghosts voice is silent over my comms trusting in my ability to navigate via smell and sight without any assistance. 

Ben had cleared us for light duties a week ago, on the provision that Ghost was not on active missions outside of communications. He'd grumbled and only relented when Ben had threatened to handcuff him to the bed. So, we'd compromised, he'd be my ears and eyes in the sky and I'd be the paws on the ground. We'd both chafed that Price had given us a time wasting mission that would normally go to some agency that focused on information gathering. Price wanted to see how I'd go on a mission like this and deemed it the perfect opportunity for me to let my wings spread so to speak.

I found the building I was meant to be infiltrating and my eyes blew wide as I saw the sheer size of the mansion. Seeing numbers on paper and pictures was one thing, but holy damn was this place big. Talk about an in and out mission. I kept the balaclava pulled down low as I surveyed the guards rotating across the estate. I counted out the blind spots and found one. One blind spot that would work best. 

"Wolf?" Ghosts voice soft over the comms as if he'd be heard by a guard if he spoke any louder.

"One blind spot," I murmur back softly. "Getting in will be tight. We sure they don't have the windows rigged up to alarms?" 

"Affirmative. The top floors are clear. As we discussed the only risk will be someone on the other side, however Bryce and Laswell have tapped into the camera feeds and have declared southbound wall, third window up, fourth from the left is clear."

"Pushing my limits," I mutter.

"You'll be fine. You're not carrying any excessive equipment."

"Let's hope so." I turn my attention towards the guard rotation, find the blind spot and begin moving swiftly, close to the ground so I'm barely a dark blur moving in the moonless night.

I'm up against the wall in the pure dark of the shadows as a guard passes by me, eyes not even registering an additional black spot in the shadow, eyes too focused outwards. I move towards the corner of the building and count to forty. The next guard appears around the corner and before he can open his eyes in surprise I slash his throat open and hide his body in the shadows. I begin the count down again, the next guard arriving perfectly on time and I repeat the sequence, dispensing of him easily. I rinse and repeat with the next two guards.

"Smooth work, Wolf. Make it to the window and get in and out before the bodies are found."

"Yes sir," I respond absently and find the window he had told me about. I gauge the distance and find that with the roughness of the wall I should be able to find the purchase to grip my claws into. I wish I had Lilly's much sharper claws, no doubt she would have scaled the wall much easier. I take my risky run up before leaping straight up. I grip onto the edge of the window sill, nails digging in to hold on when I feel my shoulder start to give under my weight. "Shit," I hiss and drag myself up. I try and muffle a scream as I feel it pop out of it's socket. Tears spring to my eyes as I finish hauling myself up ignoring the pain as much as I can until I'm falling through the carelessly open window. I tumble to the floor, clutching my shoulder and rocking back and forwards. I can distantly hear Ghosts voice through my earbuds but I ignore him, shirt between my teeth and yank on my arm to relocate it. I bite down on my shirt wishing I had something thicker to sink my teeth into as I muffle the scream that wants to escape my mouth. 

"Wolf!" Ghost shouts finally drawing my attention to him. "What happened?"

"Dislocated my shoulder."

"Shit. Get out."