Sheepdog-26

“I don’t believe you.” Martin said, “If I get out, they’ll take me back just like all of the other times I got caught.”

Martin, alas, was wrong. This is understandable, as he is in denial at that moment and has those very past experiences he mentioned to support his false belief. When his handler noticed that Martin did not check in at the appointed time, that handler activated another agent under his control and made certain that Martin wasn’t flaking out. This confirmed, the handler immediately burned Martin and put the word up to his boss that their man on the ground got compromised by the opposition.

The handler got orders to escalate and sanitize the situation before the inevitable consequences manifested. To get this done, the handler called upon assets in the Syndicate and in Los Zetas. He fed his assets a carefully-curated briefing, ensuring that his assets would not refuse to act on the conclusion that his briefing led them to- move in and exterminate Ken and his allies. They agreed, and the handler ensured the usual compensation for doing so.

Within hours, men from Canada and Mexico again met at an airport in Chicago. These men, as with the last men gathered, were trained and skilled killers. Unlike the last group, this was a small team that had previously worked together in various operations. Despite their nominal employers being a pair of rival criminal syndicates, both groups maintained ties to the Intelligence Community and thus had both markers and debts with them- and often more of the latter than the former.

Guiscard, again, got a warning from a man he knew there. Again, he passed that on to Ken and the others. Again, the men running the defense in the county passed the warning on—quietly—to the people in the militia. This time, however, the response differed. Instead of flying in on a civilian jet, the killers flew over the area in a conveniently provided C-130 military aircraft. Instead of landing and then embarking on their mission, the killers jumped out of the aircraft and parachuted down—the cover was that it was an exercise, as the aircraft would land at the Air National Guard station—and then get on with their wetwork.

Ken and his allies figured that this time would see an airdrop in a deniable craft, so instead of sending up their attack plane they put the word out to their neighbors and kept a watch for the men as they descended. When the call came in, the spotters fled the scene while Ken and his allies rushed to it; the two parties met as the hitmen commandeered the vacant home, sparking a firefight between them. The hitmen, cornered, fought without restraint; Ken and his allies showed them no mercy. An hour later all but one had been killed or cut down and captured; by the next day, The Sheriff apprehended that one last men when he failed to invade a home a few miles away- the wife of the house shot him down with a waterfowl gun, crippling him.