The Milestone Protocol by Ernest Dempsey (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

two maneuvered around the corner to find Adriana and Tommy standing over the three dead men—each with the same tattoos all the others displayed on their necks.

“Anything around back?” Sean asked.

“Only a bunch of bodies,” Adriana replied. “How many did Emily bring with her? The entire Axis agency?”

Sean shook his head. “No. Just a few good guns. I let them know we were in Russia. Then earlier, I shared my location with Emily. She’s been following us.”

Niki nodded, impressed with Sean’s foresight.

Sean felt his phone vibrate. He took it out and answered, already knowing who it was.

“Good timing,” he said dryly.

“Not done yet,” Emily replied. She appeared around the corner behind Sean, walking purposefully toward him with the phone pressed against her ear. She wore a black turtleneck with a white windbreaker over it and white cargo pants with black boots, and held a .45 SIG Sauer in her right hand that swung past her hip. “We have four that ran into the barn behind the farmhouse. Dak and June have it covered. Tara and Alex are out front. Unfortunately, one vehicle got away. Looked like Sorenson, Clark, and one of his goons. I think I got the bodyguard in the side, but he still escaped.”

“June’s here?” Tommy asked, sounding hopeful.

“Out of all that, you got June is here?” Sean scolded. Then he winked. Then he turned back to Emily. “What do you think, partner?”

Her right eyebrow lifted, matching the suspicion in her voice. “Been a while since you called me that, Agent Zero,” she said with a wry smirk.

“Don’t get too excited,” Sean warned. He looked over at the barn. “Seeing how this property belongs to the Cult of Thoth, not to mention our former friend Magnus Sorenson, I think we should have ourselves a little cookout.”

“Cookout?” Tabitha wondered, unable to hide the confused concern in her voice.

The others followed his gaze to the rickety old barn.

“You’re not thinking of—”

Sean cut her off. “Oh, absolutely.”

Tommy stared at the wooden structure. “He is. He definitely is.”

40

Russia

Dark smoke poured into the sky, billowing out through the big barn windows on the second story. Sean watched as the flames crept up the walls. He knew it would get hotter by the second inside, though he figured the smoke would probably force the henchmen from their hiding spot before they ever had a chance to burn alive.

Then again, Sean recalled the incident with the man on the rooftop biting the cyanide pill to end his life before he could be arrested or interrogated.

It was possible, but Sean knew that deep down, every human feared being burned alive, or even burned after death. There was something terrifying about it. It had been a powerful motivator during the Inquisition, and every witch-hunt and heretic drive since. Even that was somehow different than being consumed by a barn fire.

There was also the chance that the cyanide wouldn’t kill the victims. Sean had heard stories of people who’d tried to kill themselves in a similar fashion to the man on the rooftop, only to survive the episode with permanent, horrific damage to their internal organs and tissue.

He pondered this as he stared pensively at the big window of the barn. Even from a good distance of fifty feet, he could feel the searing heat radiating from the flames.

“You know,” Tommy said, standing next to his friend, “fire departments will see this from miles away. So will inquisitive neighbors.”

“True,” Sean agreed. It was another contingency he’d considered, but setting fire to the barn was the best way to ensure everyone with him remained safe.

Alex snuffed out the makeshift torch he’d used to light a bale of old hay next to the wall. Then he trudged over to where Sean and Tommy stood. Emily, Dak, and June covered the backside of the barn, with Tara on the left and Niki on the right. Tara kept her AR15 rifle aimed at the open window. Sean and Tommy were just as ready to engage the enemy, despite their casual stances with newly equipped matching rifles hanging from their shoulders above their abdomens.

“I hope this works,” Alex said.

“It will.” Sean sounded confident, but with every passing second, he feared that either the men inside were dead, or the fire department would soon be on the way.

Suddenly, two men appeared at the top of the barn with their hands raised. Two more were behind them, covering their mouths and coughing.

One of the guys stumbled and fell out of the window headfirst. He landed on his shoulder and his head bent in an awkward direction, but he rolled over screaming and kicking, grabbing at the shoulder with his opposite hand.

“And that’s how you break a clavicle,” Tommy quipped.

Sean snorted. “Yep.”

The other three men threw their weapons down to the ground and then climbed down the wooden ladder.

Sean and his crew kept their guns aimed at the men until the three threw themselves on the ground with their hands over their heads.

“Almost like they’ve done this routine before, huh?” Alex noted.

“Almost,” Adriana agreed.

“Throw some water on that fire, Alex,” Sean ordered.

“You got it, chief.”

“Hey, I’m chief,” Tommy whined.

“Sorry, boss.” Alex trotted back down toward the barn where he’d left a thick hose laid out on the snow. It looked too old not to have any leaks, but after testing it out with the high-pressure outlet they discovered close to the field, Alex discovered the hose still worked.

He reached into the in-ground covering and pulled on the valve. The farm may have been off-grid, but they still had a source of water.

Sean recalled seeing high-pressure water outlets like that before when he’d worked Sorenson’s property in the States. He’d used them countless times to water new plants, or old ones in the hot southern summers. They weren’t as powerful as a firehose, but put out much more water than a standard hose outlet.

Alex picked up the hose and sprayed the walls of the barn, splashing the cold liquid over the flames in what—at first—was