Cold Barrel Zero Read Online Free PDF

end and came to a stop at the edge of the highway.
    They curved in through the smoke onto the road. Before the men inside the truck could react, all four members of Hayes’s squad were standing in the dead space, feeling the heat from the blast.
    Muzzles flared through the gun ports in three-round bursts of automatic fire. The bullets came within feet of the team outside but couldn’t reach them. The rear-wheel-drive truck had been reduced to a stalled prison. The men inside were at Hayes’s mercy.
    Speed walked to the back of the truck in a crouch, then stepped on the bumper and started laying explosives along the four hinges of the rear doors. They were linear-shaped charges, thick strips of C-4 explosive fixed to a long V-shaped piece of copper about an inch wide. The open end of the V pressed against the plate steel.
    Only one shooter inside the truck continued to waste rounds firing at them. He was probably too worked up to know better. Speed paid no mind as he finished his task. The explosives would deform the copper and send it shooting out at twenty-two thousand miles per hour, essentially squeezing it into a liquid razor that would slice through the metal before the explosion had a chance to melt the copper. He plugged two detonators into each charge, then stepped down and tossed the wires to Hayes, crouched alongside the truck.
    Hayes plugged the wires into his detonator, then crawled under the passenger-side gun port and stepped out a dozen feet in front of the truck, fully lit by its headlights. He normally used a smaller trigger, but tonight he’d picked a multiline unit with a key and a red button. Theatrics mattered for this one.
    The driver hit the gas again. What was left of the rear axle and differential ground uselessly against the road. The damaged metal tore against itself and shrieked. Next to the truck, Cook and Speed helped boost Moret onto the roof. The noise and shuddering from the drivetrain succeeded in covering the sound of her movements as Moret dragged herself along the top of the vehicle until she was over the cab.
    Hayes lifted the detonator into view, pointed to the doors, and mimed an explosion with his hand. He turned the key and raised his right hand, fingers outstretched to start the countdown.
    First five, then four.
    The men in the cab watched him. He could see them talking, still composed despite the explosion. The man in the middle reached down—for a heavier weapon, Hayes guessed. The other two lifted their MP7s. He wished they hadn’t. They were readying for an assault. He wanted them alive. He’d spent a lot of time with Speed working through the charge calculations and precisely splitting sticks of M112 to avoid juicing the guards. Killing them would have been much easier, but it would muddy Hayes’s message, and the message was all that mattered in unconventional warfare.
    Little Bill’s mouth dropped open as he locked eyes with Hayes, his old instructor.
    Hayes held up three fingers.
    Hands on doors inside the cab. He could tell by their eyes, the way the muscles in their faces tightened: they were coming out fighting.
    He tapped the radio mounted on his shoulder.
    “Moret, get the bang ready. Doors are opening.”
    He raised two fingers, holding it for a long count to buy time as Moret took a grenade off her vest, pulled the pin, and held the spoon.
    The doors opened. Moret let the spoon fly, tossed the grenade in the cab, and rolled back across the roof of the truck just as all three men inside jumped out, guns ready.
    White light filled the cab as the explosion deafened them. The concussion grenade hit with enough force to disorient them for ten seconds. The driver, blind, kept moving, then tripped and fell hard. Little Bill leaned back against the truck and crumpled, hands over his ears, while the messenger staggered in a half circle, groping for the shotgun he had dropped.
    Cook, Speed, and Moret rushed them and had all three guards facedown on the ground with flex