Chapter 196 Counterattack Battle
Chapter 196 Counterattack Battle
Raynor's voice cut off — then the channel erupted with a low, heavy boom, like an entire wall had just caved in.
David's expression darkened. "Nearest plane."
Hassan came back immediately. "Got one. Seven minutes."
Mia's fingers flew across the screen. The airspace grid over New York snapped open in an instant. "I've hijacked a stealth transport. Old model — military surplus, been sitting in storage — but she'll fly. She'll rendezvous ahead of you."
Devereaux studied the building footage on the terminal, his face grim. "GDC isn't playing around this time. The electromagnetic cage on the outer walls is still intensifying. Any standard helicopter gets close, it's getting swatted out of the sky."
"Then don't get close." David tossed the terminal back. "Go straight through."
Mia looked up at him. "I knew you'd say that." A beat. "Good news is — I love this crazy shit."
---
One hour later.
Above Manhattan.
The hatch of the black stealth transport swung open.
Below, the Summit Enterprises Ltd headquarters was wrapped in arcing blue-white electricity — the entire tower locked inside what looked like an enormous, high-voltage cage.
Mia's voice crackled through the earpiece. "The barrier's weakest at the southwest corner of the top floor. You miss it, I'm scraping you off the pavement."
Devereaux stood beside the hatch, grinning. "Boss. Make it a good landing."
David stepped to the edge. "Raynor. Hold on."
What came back through the channel was ragged, labored breathing. "I'm trying, boss... They brought new equipment. The whole floor's filled with this foul white mist — our heads feel like they're about to split open—"
Mia muttered something sharp under her breath. "Plasma fog launchers. They scramble brainwave activity and disrupt sensitivity to anomalous energy signatures." Her voice went flat. "They built this specifically for you."
David stepped off the edge and dropped.
He hit the southwest corner of the top floor like a meteor strike.
---
Every GDC agent on the floor froze.
"Up there—!"
David landed in a half-crouch. The tile beneath him fractured outward in a starburst pattern, and the shockwave sent two full rows of tactical shields crashing backward.
Then the fog vents opened.
White mist poured across the floor, filling half the top level in seconds, and the air filled with a low, invasive hum.
The room tilted slightly at the edges of David's vision.
"Disgusting." Mia's voice had an edge to it now. "They've upgraded the system. The interference frequency is tuned directly to your neural signature."
Across the floor, the GDC team had already steadied themselves.
The man at the front was Desmond — tall, lean, a silver Council insignia hanging from his chest, a cylindrical launcher in his hands that kept pushing out steady streams of white mist.
He looked at David without blinking. "Target confirmed. David. Global Class-One Termination Order. Lethal force authorized on sight."
"Really picking your moment!" Raynor's voice cut through from behind the barricade. "Boss — three launchers on your left, two more on your right!"
A burst of gunfire swept across the floor.
David rolled sideways, clearing the line.
His telekinesis was still flickering under the interference — not reliable enough to push through. Brute-forcing it would cost him.
Desmond raised a hand. "Press in. Don't give him room to stabilize."
David scanned upward — fire suppression lines running along the ceiling. Then across to the ventilation grates on the far wall. He made his decision in under a second and launched himself low along the floor. Two tranq grenades skimmed past him and burst open, thickening the mist.
"Contain him!" Desmond's voice was ice.
Two agents swung their weapons around. David was already on top of them — he drove his fist through one man's visor, spun, and whipped the rifle free, using it like a bat to catch the second agent across the throat. The man went down hard.
Then David kicked the fire suppression main line straight off the ceiling.
The pipe split open. A high-pressure column of water exploded outward, tearing a path through the mist.
He sprinted to the control panel and pulled his long blade. One clean stroke.
The ventilation system's primary power junction went dark. The massive roof exhaust fans spun down and stopped — and before the backup cycle could engage, Mia had already overwritten the program remotely.
"Thank you, sweetheart." David moved. "Give them a little blowback."
---
Every outward-facing vent reversed direction simultaneously.
The plasma fog that had just been discharged hit the oncoming water spray, caught the reversed airflow, and rolled straight back into the area the GDC team was holding.
"Damn it—!"
"Visor readings are gone!"
"Fall back — fall back—"
But it was already too late.
Because David's telekinesis had come back online.
In the center of the room, the conference table lifted silently off the floor.
Desmond burst out of the white mist — and the entire table came down on him like a wall.
"Get down—!"
The impact sent Desmond and two agents straight into the wall. Both agents crumpled and went still. Desmond slammed into the surface and slid, his chest plate caved inward.
David's blade swept left, then right.
Two more down.
His security team had pushed through the far end of the floor by then, pouring fire into the remaining agents, cutting off any retreat.
"Not so loud now, are you!" Raynor's face was streaked with blood. He put an agent on the ground with one brutal motion and didn't slow down. "Come on — who else?!"
In under a minute, the entire floor went quiet.
---
David moved to the far wall.
Desmond was still alive.
The GDC's top field agent was propped against a cracked support column, blood running from the corner of his mouth, his chest plate warped out of shape, his right arm hanging at an angle it shouldn't have been.
David grabbed him by the collar and hauled him off the ground. "Who gave the order?"
"You think this is the real target?" Desmond coughed, and what came up was red — but he was smiling. "David. You always hit hard. And you always show up one step behind."
Raynor's voice cut in. "Boss — the building's mostly clear, and the outer barrier's almost gone. But the new intel is... complicated."
Mia pushed a fresh map to the main screen without a word.
A volcanic island. No name. Somewhere in the Pacific.
The crater was buried under layer after layer of camouflage. The underground space was massive — concealed chambers, power conduits running in every direction.
"Pulled it from Desmond's team's internal network." Mia spoke quickly. "The leadership of the Soul Sanctum was never in the undersea fortress. That was a decoy outpost. The real sanctuary — the last one — is inside this volcano." A pause. "The whole mountain is hollow. There's something like an altar at the center."
Devereaux stared at the screen. "These people are out of their minds."
Raynor's expression had gone very still. "There's something else."
Mia was quiet for a moment. Then she pulled up a second window.
A commercial flight manifest. Red text across the header — flight number, passenger list, emergency deviation record.
One of the names on the list was Veda.
His cousin.
"Someone on the Council tampered with the flight authorization." Mia's voice was careful now. "The plane was originally bound for Miami. It went dark mid-flight — transponder destroyed. Last known transmission came from somewhere over the Amazon rainforest."
Raynor's jaw was tight. "Forced landing. This wasn't an accident. It was a snatch operation."
Devereaux's voice dropped. "They can't touch you directly, so they go after your family."
Desmond had been listening. His smile shifted into something uglier. "Go ahead, David. Go to the jungle."
David took one step and put him hard against the fractured wall.
Desmond's chest made a dull sound on impact. He was still smiling. "There's a man waiting for you down there. Name's Mateo Vance."
Mia's expression changed. "The psychological warfare specialist? The one who treats people's minds like toys?"
"Go to the rainforest." Desmond's eyes were fixed on David, his voice rising toward something unhinged. "Mateo will take you apart piece by piece. You'll watch your family die, and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it."