Chapter 45 #2
They began to search, the crunch of their boots on the concrete the only sound.
Breakneck ran his hand along a row of massive, metal vats, their interiors stained a dark, blood-red.
Carver kicked at a pile of wooden crates, which crumbled into dust. Jones checked behind a rusted boiler. It was Carver who found it.
“Hey,” he called out. He was standing by a far wall, a section that looked no different from the rest, corrugated iron, rivets, and peeling paint. He rapped his knuckles against it. “Sounds hollow.”
Iceman moved to where he was standing, running his hand over the surface. He found it almost immediately, a small, nearly invisible latch cleverly disguised as a rivet head. He pulled it. With a groan of protesting metal, a ten-foot-wide section of the wall swung inward, revealing darkness.
They swept their lights into the opening.
It wasn't a room. It was a narrow, hidden corridor built between the inner and outer walls.
Lining the corridor, stacked on simple wooden shelves from floor to ceiling, were duffel bags.
Dozens of them. All packed tight. The air that billowed out was thick with the sharp, unmistakable scent of cash.
“Jackpot,” Jones breathed, a low, greedy whistle.
Iceman ignored him. “Breakneck,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Overwatch. High ground. I want eyes on every possible entrance while we prep this for confiscation. You see anything, you call it out. We don’t move until we know we won’t have company.”
Breakneck nodded, his mission clear. He didn’t need to be told twice.
He moved quickly, finding the metal staircase and beginning his ascent to the crane operator’s cab.
He needed to secure the perimeter and make sure this place was as empty as it felt before they called in the authorities to come and take it all away.
When he got inside the steel-and-glass coffin, high above the main floor, it was tactically sound.
Breakneck worked with methodical precision, locking his rifle into its mount, and settling in behind the scope, in a typical sniper position, flat on his stomach.
The glass was grimy, but the view was clear.
He had a god’s-eye view of the entire processing floor, the main entrance, and the catwalks that webbed the ceiling.
He ran his eyes over the duffel bags being carefully pulled from the hidden wall by Iceman and Carver.
Jones stood watch, his posture deceptively relaxed.
He keyed his mic. “Iceman, I’m set. I have eyes on everything.”
“Copy,” Iceman’s voice came back, calm and steady. He keyed his own mic. “TOC. This is Iceman. We have jackpot.”
Breakneck kept them in the crosshairs, his scope swinging left, then right, covering the perimeter. The time stretched out. Ten seconds. Twenty. No response from TOC.
Ice keyed his mic again. “TOC, this is Iceman. How copy?”
Nothing. Not even static. Was the signal blocked by all this metal?
A cold dread, sharp and metallic, flooded his veins. He took a breath, breathing carefully, his scope swinging back to Iceman.
Suddenly, Jones moved. In a single, fluid motion, he raised his rifle, the buttstock heading for the back of Iceman’s head. Iceman moved, a sharp pivot that was almost a blur, and Breakneck wasn't sure if it was pure instinct or if he'd been prepared for treachery from the DEA agents all along.
Ice’s hand went for his sidearm, but a shadow moved in his periphery.
Carver stepped into Iceman’s space, a knife flashing in the dim light of the cannery and sank it deep into Ice’s side.
He grunted, a sound of pure shock and pain.
This time, Jones’s rifle butt connected with a sickening crunch, and Iceman went down hard.
Blair was going over her final report to Darrow, making sure it was thorough, as it would be passed on to Chief Superintendent Desjardins. Every word had to be perfect. The quiet hum of the TOC was a familiar comfort, a world she understood.
The door slammed open and Ayla sprinted in, breathless, her face pale, her eyes horrified. Her tone was grave. “Blair! You have to see this.”
Blair was on her feet before she knew it.
Ayla hooked her laptop up to the main screen, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
The scene played out. Grainy, thermal drone footage.
She watched Carver execute her two Mounties in cold blood, his line as he stepped over their bodies infuriating her.
“Thank you for your service.” She watched them drag Valdivia from the area, the interrogation carried on between the foliage of the trees, but was nothing but a prelude to a brutal, calculated murder.
A cold, hard dread settled in her gut, heavy and suffocating. This had been their plan all along. The stash house, the false leads…it was all a setup. A get-rich-quick scheme paved with bodies.
Breakneck… Iceman… They were in terrible danger. They were alone out there with two traitors, not just to their partner force, but to their country. They weren’t going to let two SEALs stand in the way of their savagely won payday.
“Where are they now?” Blair asked, her voice firm but filled with an anguish she couldn’t hide. “They should have logged the sites.”
Ayla looked at her, her expression blank with confusion. “They didn’t.”
Blair’s heart dropped. Of course, they hadn’t logged them. Carver had made sure of that.
“Where is the team?” Blair demanded.
“Just getting back to the airfield,” Ayla said, her voice trembling. “We have to do something.”
Blair’s shoulders squared, her mind racing, every instinct screaming at her to move. Nothing was going to stand in her way. She picked up the secure phone, her hand steady despite the tremor in her soul. She didn’t wait for permission. She gave the order.
“Get me a helicopter. Now. Armed. Patch me through to Preacher.” She spoke quickly, and Preacher’s response was visceral and final.
“They’re dead men walking.”
She slammed the phone down. “We’re going to find them,” she said, her voice a low vow already heading for the airfield. “And by God, when we do, those two are going to pay dearly.”
“No-ooo—”
The sound echoed through the cavernous cannery, a primal scream of outrage and torment.
With a detached clarity, he realized it was himself.
Through a red haze of fury, Carver was the perfect, unmoving target, already in his scope.
He had him dead to rights, center mass, just waiting for a high-velocity bullet.
The weight of Iceman’s deadly situation crashed down on him in a whole new compartment of cold, hard rage.
Memories flooded him, the way Iceman had nurtured him, treated him like a…
son, protected him, led him. All the layers and layers of brotherhood, and the worst feeling of all.
How his team would react to his failure. All of it.
Anguish and the surge of numbing fear gnawed at him, but he dropped into true, empty sniper mode. Ice’s life depended on it. He couldn’t think about him now, or he’d soon be dead. Ice was bleeding out on the floor fifty feet below.
He pulled the trigger. While Carver stared up at his helplessness with an infuriating smug look, the noise of the rifle jamming was the loudest thing Breakneck had ever heard. A dead, final sound. Goddammit.
He took a breath, breathing carefully. He tried the radio one more time, his thumb mashing the button, his eyes locked on Carver below.
“TOC, this is Breakneck, do you copy?”
A laugh echoed through the cavernous space, a sound of pure, condescending victory. Carver looked up at him, held up a small, black device in his hand. A jammer. That’s why they couldn’t get through. With a sick, sinking feeling, Breakneck realized they had planned this to the last detail.
Out of options, he rose but saw that Jones was already more than halfway to him. Jones was thinking he was a sitting duck, just waiting for the hunter to end the fight.
Fuck those fuckers. He was never out of the fight.
Jones’s voice was subdued. “Sorry about this, kid. I’ll make it fast. You won’t have to see your leader die.”
Breakneck rose from his position, grabbing for his sidearm. He racked the slide, but it wouldn’t budge. Jammed. Seized. Sabotaged.
He saw Jones then, already more than halfway up the metal staircase, moving with a confident, predatory lope. his voice drifted up, taunting, amplified by the steel structure. “That’s okay, kid. I’ll make it fast. You won’t have to see your leader die.”
Breakneck took several fortifying, slowing breaths, his eyes darting around the cab.
Debris was everywhere, old coffee cups, broken tools, shattered glass.
But something rusted and sharp caught his attention.
A small, grease-stained wooden box on the floor, spilled open.
Inside were heavy, iron cog wheels, their teeth sharp and wicked.
He reached down, his fingers closing around three of them, their weight dense and cold in his palm.
He kept his pistol at his side, a prop for a play he was about to write.
Jones reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the cab, his sidearm held loosely at his side, a gloating smile on his face. “Don’t make it worse—”
That was all the room Breakneck needed. He exploded into movement.
He brought up his hand and released one of the cogs.
It sliced through the air with a soft whisper of deadly sound before hitting Jones’s weapon.
The sound of metal on metal clanged in the silence, the firearm dislodging and flying from his hands, clattering with satisfaction as it came to rest on the catwalk below, way out of Jones’s reach.
The man looked at him for a surprised, almost respectful second, his eyes narrowing. “Well, aren’t you full of fucking surprises, kid.”