Chapter 6
August 4, 1982
13:00
Larson Family Farm
Pipestone County, Minnesota
The helo flew them over the picturesque, rolling farmlands of southwest Minnesota. These were Snow Walkers’ pack lands. The wolves here had a heavy hand in the agriculture economy. Unfortunately, the farm they were approaching was producing more than the corn, beef, and milk the region was known for.
“Ready to do your part in the war on drugs?” Major Ortiz asked, speaking loudly into her helmet mic to be heard over the sound of the chopper blades.
“Ready, willing, and able, Major,” Hazard answered with a grin.
“Shifter council wants to make sure that shit doesn’t take over pack communities,” she continued. “Taking it out at the root is the best way to keep that from happening. And today’s target has established deep roots in the Midwest drug trade.”
Jax nodded. “So let’s yank ‘em out.”
They closed in on a massive, upscale white farmhouse set in the middle of a vast swath of emerald green grass. Front columns soared up to a gray roof, a black wrought iron balcony wrapped around the entire second story, and an outdoor chandelier hung high above the wide entry doors. Neatly maintained barns and other outbuildings spread across the thousand plus acres and the entire property was enclosed by a white, split rail fence. The farm rivaled Dallas’ Southfork ranch in its grandeur.
Hazard got ready to fast rope down to the ground. When he received the signal to go, he grabbed the rope and jumped out of the helicopter. Hands tightly gripping the rope, he zipped down the line until his boots hit the crushed seashell of the driveway. Ortiz dropped down after him, while Jax and Ice slid down on the other side of the helo. Hazard took off the heavy gloves he’d used to descend the rope and quickly tucked them away in a side pocket.
Once they gave the all clear, the soldier left on board with the pilot unhooked their ropes to let them drop to the ground and the helo took off. Now, it was up to the 448 to infiltrate and apprehend. They were after three people. Emma Larson, the leader of the outfit, Liam, her right-hand man, and Olivia, Emma’s sister and the head of the organization’s finances. Their support team would sweep the property and take the targets into custody once they’d captured them.
The mansion’s exterior security lights gleamed dully on Ice’s black wolf mask when he turned to Hazard.
“Keep your eyes sharp and head on a swivel, Corporal.”
Hazard nodded. “I’ve got your six, sir.”
Ice appeared unimpressed with his declaration.
“Just make sure you keep up,” he said in his gruff voice.
Hazard didn’t let Ice’s indifference bother him. Apparently the big alpha needed more time to warm up to him. Although he wasn’t particularly warm to anyone on the team. The call sign Ice was definitely warranted.
They went up the wide front steps to the door. Ice, Hazard, and Ortiz held their guns at the ready, while Jax carried a battering ram to breach the entrance.
“Go on one,” Ortiz said. “Three, two, one. Go!”
Jax swung and slammed the battering ram into the seam of the double doors. They flew open from the force. He immediately tossed the breacher aside and stood back to let Ortiz enter first. Hazard followed behind the major and Ice into a large foyer with a smoothly polished dark wood floor. Directly across from them was a wide staircase with a curving banister. A young brunette man in a pale peach button down shirt and cream corduroys stood frozen half way down the stairs. He wasn’t on their target list, but he had to be secured.
“Mitchell,” Ice said.
Hazard understood the unspoken order. He moved from his place at Ice’s rear right. “On your knees!” he yelled as he went up the steps. Wide-eyed with fear, the omega obeyed. Hazard quickly restrained him with Flexi-Cuffs that he then attached to a banister in the stair case railing. He’d be fine there while they searched the premises for the ones they were after. “Where are Emma, Olivia, and Liam?” he asked.
“Emma and Oliva are up— upstairs in the blue room,” he stuttered out. “Down the hall to your right. I— I don’t know where Liam is.”
“You two get the sisters,” Ortiz directed. “Jax and I will take Liam.”
“Rog,” Ice confirmed the order. He quickly went up the staircase, Hazard following close behind.
When they reached the second level, Ice cleared the doors on the right and Hazard took the left. Their movements were precise, quick, and in near perfect rhythm. They had to be ready to react fast, but also carefully. Neither of them wanted to shoot an unarmed adult or a harmless child.
Toward the end of the hall, they reached what the omega had probably been referring to when he said the blue room. Unfortunately, it was empty. Which made sense. The women had plenty of time to move between when Jax had bashed their door in and now.
Temporarily thwarted, they backed out of the room. Hazard wondered where they could have gone. The women couldn’t have gone downstairs because they would have seen them. Unless...
“Captain. A place this big should have a servant’s stairwell.”
“You’re right. It should.”
There was one more door at the end of the hall. Quietly, they crept up on it. Hazard opened the door to reveal a narrow staircase. Ice went in first. At the bottom of the stairs was a closed door. Ice kicked it in with the sole of his heavy boot. The door bounced against the wall before sagging half way open. On the other side of the door way was what looked to be a servant’s prep room. And inside, several armed guards. One of the guards fired at them, but they ducked back into the stairwell and out of the line of fire. A bullet missed Hazard by inches, lodging in the wall next to his torso.
Hazard met his partner’s gaze in the dark, narrow stairway. Ice held up three fingers to indicate the number of armed guards in the room. Hazard nodded.
“On three,” Ice silently mouthed.
Ice counted down. On three, he leaned around the doorway, gun up to fire into the prep room. Hazard dropped to his knees so he’d have clearance and shot from behind Ice’s legs.
“Let’s move,” Ice said when there was no return fire.
They proceeded into the room. There were three dead guards. A woman kneeled on the floor with her hands raised over her head. Another woman stood next to her, chin haughtily raised, and a hand behind her back.
“Emma Larson! We’re US Legion! Let me see your hands!” Hazard shouted.
Larson obeyed his order. She showed her hands. But one of them was clutching a big, sharp kitchen knife. Her face twisted in a snarl, she let out a yell and ran at them with the knife raised to strike.
“I got her,” Ice said.
He moved forward to meet her. She swung the knife at him, but Ice dodged the blade. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed until she yelled. She loosened her grip and the knife fell from her hand, clattering to the floor. Ice twisted her arm up behind her back.
“Emma Larson, you are taken into the custody of the US Legion,” Ice said as he bound her wrists behind her back with Flexi-Cuffs.
Hazard went over and quickly did the same to the sister.
“The Larson sisters are secured,” he reported to the major over the comm link. “Three guards are K.I.A.”
“Roger that. We’re pursuing Liam.”
“Need assistance?”
The major didn’t immediately answer. The sound of running footsteps came over the line, followed by a grunt, breaking glass, and a pained howl.
“No,” Ortiz came back on the line, her breathing a little harsher than before. “The fucker tried to shift and run off but we got him.”
Roger.” He left them to it and focused on his captured target. “Up you get.” Hazard gripped Olivia’s arm and tugged, hauling her up to her feet. He and Ice marched the two women back up the stairs and into the main hall way.
“Hold up in the blue room until support team arrives,” Ice directed. “It’ll be easier to defend from there instead of the main floor if something happens.”
“Agreed,” Hazard said as he led Olivia into the blue room. “Ladies, you try to shift and you catch a bullet.”
Emma snarled in response but Olivia didn’t utter a single sound. They had the two women kneel again, this time on the carpeted floor of the blue room.
“You’re wasting your time taking me into custody.” Emma said. “I won’t be there long.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. My family has connections on the shifter council.”
Hazard eyed her as she spoke with such haughty certainty. Emma Larson was a striking woman. Tall, with thick, waist length wheat blond hair. She was dressed comfortably but stylishly in a pair of dark Jordache jeans, a calico patterned button-down shirt, and brown boots.
“And you two. Shifters, working in the human military. Despicable,” she said with her lips curled in a sneer.
Hazard sneered right back. “Said the woman cooking up drugs to get her fellow shifters hooked on. I think you win this round of who’s despicable.”
Ice didn’t participate in the conversation. He stood there silently with his weapon trained on the targets, waiting for the support team to come in and secure them.
Hazard was in position just behind the captain, keeping watch on the door to make sure no one but Legion members came through it. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a slight movement in the wall behind him. Casually, so as not to let on that he’d noticed, he shifted his stance so that he had a better view of the wall.
There. He caught movement again. One of the lines in the walnut paneling was wider than it should be, as if a section had separated from the one next to it. Someone was behind that wall, watching them.
Hazard tightened his grip on his weapon. When the panel fully slid open, he was ready.
A guard popped out of the secret room like a Jack in the Box. He had a revolver in hand. The moment he tried to raise it to aim it at Ice, Hazard fired one round and dropped him. The guard collapsed to the floor, the weapon he didn’t have the chance to fire falling from his lifeless fingers.
Hazard went over, kicked the gun away from the now dead body and checked the wall to make sure there weren’t any more surprises hiding inside. The space was empty.
Ice hadn’t even flinched while all of that went down. And he didn’t once take his attention off of the two he had on the ground, leaving the enemy at his back for Hazard to deal with. Hazard couldn’t help but feel honored that the captain trusted him to handle it on his own.
“Clear?” he asked calmly.
“Clear,” Hazard confirmed.
Soon after that, a couple of soldiers from the support team came in and collected the two women. Their job finished, the 448 walked out of the mansion. Hazard trailed behind Ice until they reached the drive. They stood in front of the mansion, waiting for their transport vehicle to arrive. Hazard looked up at the captain.
“Told ya I had your six,” he said with a cheeky smile.
“Hmm.”
Hazard sighed at that lackluster response. “Can I get even a crumb of praise from you?”
“If you need praise for doing your job, you’re in the wrong profession,” Ice gruffly said.
“Nah, I don’t need it. Just wondered what it sounded like coming from you. Would it be actual words? Or do you use different inflections of grunts to convey what you want to say?”
Ice tilted his head to the side as he stared at him, as if he was trying to figure him out. The decidedly wolf like move made Hazard laugh.
“I’m funning with you, Captain,” he said as their transport pulled up. “Let’s get back to base and get some grub.”
To his surprise, Ice sat next to him in the cargo area of the vehicle, leaving Jax to sit on the opposite bench with Ortiz. Then shocking him further, Ice spoke without any prompting.
“A gunman hiding in the walls. Wasn’t expecting that.”
Was that an invitation to talk about the mission? Hazard certainly hoped so. He clutched the proverbial ball Ice had tossed him and ran with it. “Me either. But when I saw that seam in the paneling shift I knew something was up. I bet that wasn’t the only secret panel in there. The mansion is probably full of little hidey holes and secret passages.”
“Drug lords do love their secret rooms and tunnels,” Ice agreed.
“They seriously had a shooter in the wall?” Jax asked.
Ice nodded. “Yeah. But Hazard took him out.”
The conversation between them continued as they rode away from the farm on the way back to their temporary base. Ice was spare in his speech, but he did contribute and he listened in a way that made it clear he wanted to talk.
Hazard played it cool, but inside he was howling with happiness. He’d won over the captain. Not only had Ice struck up a conversation with him, but he’d called him Hazard instead of Mitchell. He was smart enough not to call attention to it or say I told you so, but damn he was glad that it had happened.
Hazard cast a quick glance over at Ortiz. She was watching them with a smile lighting her brown eyes. She appeared happy to see that a barrier had fallen between Ice and the newest member of the team.
To Hazard, it felt like the final piece of a puzzle locking into place. Jax accepted him. Ortiz accepted him. And now Ice had given him a tacit stamp of approval. He truly was a part of the 448.