The Blackwood estate rose from the forested hills like a wound that had never healed.
Caleb lay in the underbrush at the edge of the tree line, his body pressed flat against the cold earth, his eyes fixed on the compound through a pair of night-vision binoculars. The mansion was a sprawling structure of grey stone and black glass, its wings spreading across the crest of a hill like the arms of a stone octopus. A twelve-foot wall ringed the entire property, its surface topped with coils of razor wire that glittered in the moonlight. Guard towers rose at each corner, their floodlights sweeping the grounds in slow, mechanical arcs. Inside the walls, figures moved along gravel paths—men in dark tactical gear, their rifles held at the ready, their faces hidden behind night-vision goggles.
Vey
