The sound was deafening, overlapping, a sustained roar that made it impossible to think, only react.
Finn watched from the window, his heart hammering. He saw Axel behind a concrete barrier, returning fire from behind cover, saw Wrench, the old mechanic, calmly working a bolt action rifle like he was back on a range, saw men he'd only met in passing standing their ground defending their home with everything they had.
And he saw Magnus standing in the center of the storm, not hiding, not taking cover, just standing there with his shotgun firing, racking, firing again, daring anyone to come at him, the president, the leader, the immovable object. Three Vegas mercenaries charged his position and were stopped almost immediately.
But, the Vegas crew had numbers, and they had a plan. While the main force engaged the Angels at the front, a smaller team of five men peeled off.
Moving along the eastern wall, away from the main battle. Flanking.
Finn saw it happen, saw the break in the pattern. His eyes tracked the movement.
For 13 months, survival had depended on noticing things other people missed. Reading patterns, seeing the anomaly, the threat.
His brain, trained by necessity to map his environment, suddenly clicked into gear. He knew this compound, not from living here for four days, but from watching it for four months from the outside.
From memorizing every entrance, every exit, every blind spot, every weakness. Because that's what ghosts did.
They watched. They learned.
They survived.
"Cass." His voice was urgent.
Cass looked up from her position by the door.
"Five men. East wall."
"They're flanking."
"How do you know?"
"I watched this place for months. There's a drainage tunnel behind the machine shop."
"It comes out inside the compound. If they find it, they'll be inside."
Cass grabbed the radio. "Magnus, Finn says five hostiles flanking east wall."
"Drainage tunnel behind the machine shop."
Magnus's voice came back immediately. "Axel, take 10 men."
"East wall, now."
Axel and 10 Angels disengaged from the main battle and sprinted toward the eastern perimeter. They reached the machine shop just as the five Vegas mercenaries emerged from the drainage tunnel.
They caught the group before it could reach the interior. The clash was over within seconds, and the flanking team was stopped.
The Angels had stopped the flanking maneuver before it could succeed because a 17-year-old kid had watched, had learned, had remembered. Magnus's voice on the radio, "Good call, Finn."
The main assault was faltering. The Vegas crew had expected surprise, expected to overwhelm the compound with superior firepower and tactical training.
They hadn't expected organized resistance, hadn't expected men who fought like they had nothing to lose and everything to protect.
Dominic Vaughn, watching from a position outside the compound, realized his plan was collapsing. He had lost five men from the flanking team and eight more in the main assault.
His remaining 12 men were pinned down and making no progress.
This was supposed to be a surgical strike, in and out, send a message, retrieve the briefcase with the financial documents if possible, kill Magnus Blackwell if the opportunity presented itself. Instead, it was turning into a massacre.
Vaughn made a decision, the kind of decision that separated professionals from amateurs. When a mission goes sideways, you adapt, you improvise, you go for the secondary objective.
He couldn't get Magnus. The man was in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by his army, untouchable.
But Cassandra Blackwell was in the war room, the building on the north side, away from the main battle, lightly defended. If Vaughn couldn't kill Magnus, he could kill Magnus' wife, and that would hurt worse than any bullet.