Chapter 4 - The Attack Behind the Attack
The second shooter was better concealed.
Mara scanned the northern ridge through heat distortion, dividing the terrain into narrow visual sectors.
Another round struck the vehicle yard.
A tire burst.
Soldiers attempting to reach a response vehicle scrambled behind barriers.
The snipers were not trying to destroy the base alone.
They were fixing every defender in place.
Mara found the second position behind a broken slab of stone.
She waited for movement.
A rifle barrel shifted.
She fired.
The shape vanished behind the ridge.
Silence followed for three seconds.
Then an engine growled beyond the eastern perimeter.
Mara lifted her head.
Not one vehicle.
Several.
She keyed her radio.
“Eastern approach. Multiple trucks.”
Benton shouted from behind cover.
“How can you know that?”
“Because the snipers are controlling our attention.”
She looked through the damaged window toward the mountains.
“They want everyone facing west and north. The real assault is coming through the terrain we classified as inaccessible.”
The radio operator struggled to restore the external channel.
“Main antenna is down.”
“Use the maintenance repeater,” Mara said.
The soldier looked at her.
“It’s not configured for command traffic.”
“It is now.”
She gave him a frequency from memory.
The repeater connected.
Benton ordered units toward the eastern wall.
For the first time that morning, he followed Mara’s assessment without arguing.
But she had noticed something worse.
The attacking vehicles were traveling through a dry service route omitted from every current defensive map.
Only people with access to old engineering plans knew it existed.
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This was not simply an enemy attack.
Someone with access to American records had helped design it.
