Chapter 45 #3
Breakneck wasted no time. Ice was bleeding out. There was another man who still posed a threat. He pulled his knife from his vest, the familiar weight a promise of violence. Jones reached back for his own in a tooled leather sheath, Breakneck had noted silently.
“Jones,” Breakneck said, his voice a low growl. “I’m no fucking kid.”
He attacked without mercy. He was a blur of motion, slashing at Jones’s most vulnerable spots, throat, groin, the soft inside of his elbows.
The DEA agent did his best to counter, but it was no contest. He was a brawler, but Breakneck was a killer.
Jones got lucky, a wild, desperate slash that caught Breakneck on the side, beneath his vest. A searing, vicious pain erupted, a deep, hot slash that barely slowed him down.
He grunted, the pain fueling his rage. He came in, grappled with Jones, and slammed his head into the man’s nose.
Bone crunched. When Jones’s eyes glazed over and he stumbled, Breakneck quickly got behind him, wrapping an arm around his throat, using his weight to drag him down.
“I’m giving you one chance,” Breakneck said, his voice catching just enough to betray the cost. “Stop fighting me.”
“I can’t. I just want the money.” Jones struggled, clawing at his arm, trying to bring up the knife. With a vicious move, Breakneck twisted, the snap of his neck final and sharp in the confines of the cab. He let the body drop to the floor with a heavy thud.
He took no time to allow Jones’s death to affect him.
Whatever doubt had flickered in Jones before, it hadn’t outweighed whatever choice he’d made tonight.
He turned, his gaze dropping immediately to the floor below, to the still, bleeding form of his mentor.
Every second counted. He had to get down there. Now.
Breakneck didn’t hesitate. He kicked out the shattered glass of the crane cab and scrambled out onto the main gantry arm.
It was a narrow, steel beam, slick with spray from the river below, a hundred feet in the air.
Beneath him, Carver had already registered what happened.
He saw Jones’s body in the cab and his face contorted with a mask of pure fury.
He raised his rifle and opened fire.
Crack-crack-crack.
The rounds screamed past Breakneck’s head, ricocheting off the steel beam with angry whines. He didn’t flinch. He just ran, his boots finding purchase on the slick metal, the wind whipping at him.
He reached the end of the gantry and leaped, grabbing the thick, greasy steel cable of the crane hook.
He swung across the open space of the main floor, a human pendulum, bullets sparking off the wall behind him.
He let go, dropping onto a second-story catwalk on the opposite side of the building.
The impact jarred him, but he rolled and was up and moving without breaking stride.
He glanced down. Carver was standing over Iceman’s still form, his rifle raised, about to deliver the final, point-blank execution. There was no time for the rest of the descent.
Without breaking stride, Breakneck grabbed the two remaining, fist-sized cogs from his pocket. In a simultaneous, two-handed throw, he hurled them down at Carver.
One cog slammed into a metal I-beam next to Carver’s head with a deafening ping, showering him in rust and sparks.
The other one glanced off Carver’s shoulder with a solid, meaty impact that made him roar in pain and surprise.
He instinctively turned toward the new threat, his attention diverted from Iceman for the crucial seconds Breakneck needed.
He saw the diagonal conveyor belt that ran down to the main floor.
He leaped onto it, sliding down the metal chute like a fireman on a pole, his boots controlling his speed.
The belt ended twenty feet above the floor.
He tucked and rolled off the end, landing in a shower of sparks on the concrete floor.
He slammed directly into Carver, who was thrown backward with a surprised grunt. The impact sent him crashing into a rusted metal control panel. The jammer, clutched in his hand, popped free and skittered across the concrete.
Breakneck was on it in a flash. He brought his boot down, a sharp, vicious stamp. The device shattered with a satisfying crunch of plastic and electronics, smashing it beyond repair.
Carver got to his feet, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. He raised his rifle, but Breakneck was already on him. He still had one cog left. He held it in his offhand like a set of brass knuckles, its sharp, rusted edges a brutal extension of his own fist.
He came in low and fast. Carver swung the rifle like a club, but Breakneck parried it with the cog, the screech of metal-on-metal deafening.
The sharp edges shredded Carver’s forearm, forcing him to drop the weapon with a howl.
Breakneck used the opening, his knife flashing in, a vicious slash across Carver’s chest. He used the cog to block, to parry, to shred, creating openings for his knife, turning Carver’s own arrogance against him in a terrifyingly effective display of improvised violence.
With the knife embedded in Carver's gut, Breakneck leaned in, his voice a low, venomous whisper. "Too bad you're not a better shot, you fucker."
He jerked the knife up in one, vicious, final motion. Carver’s eyes went wide with a shock that was instantly replaced by a hollow, vacant emptiness. He made a wet, gurgling sound as Breakneck let him fall, collapsing into his own spreading pool of blood and viscera.
The thrum of the helicopter's rotors was a relentless, physical assault, a deafening heartbeat that vibrated through the floor plates and up into Blair’s bones.
For thirty minutes, they had been scanning a desolate stretch of coastline, the world below a monotonous tapestry of gray rock, churning sea, and dense, unforgiving forest. Every shadow, every abandoned building, was a potential horror story.
She stared out the open door, the wind whipping tears from the corners of her eyes.
Her mind was a battlefield. Every rational, tactical part of her was running search grids, coordinating with Ayla, who was back in TOC, frantically cross-referencing old satellite imagery with the vague "coastal" location from Iceman's last sit rep.
But underneath that cold professionalism was a raw, terrorizing panic.
Breakneck. Kelly. A beautiful, damaged, courageous man who had seen her, truly seen her, and hadn't run.
He was the man whose quiet strength and raw vulnerability had remade a piece of her soul she hadn't even known was broken.
If anything happened to him, a part of her would die.
She knew it with a certainty that scared her down to her bones.
She glanced around the cabin. Preacher, GQ, Hazard, Kodiak, Skull with Bones’s head in his lap, and Boomer all looked like they were going to explode, filling the space with big, hard bodies.
Their faces, usually set with a confident, warrior calm, were now etched with a grim determination she had never seen.
Ayla’s voice, strained but focused, came over the headset. “Blair, I’m narrowing it down. Three possible defunct industrial sites in the target area. A mine, a mill, and…an old salmon cannery. Sending coordinates now.”
Blair nodded, her throat too tight to speak. They were close. They had to be.
Her thoughts were a tangled mess of what-ifs and prayers when the sound exploded into her headset, so loud and violent it made her jump. A sharp burst of static, followed by the unmistakable, brutal sounds of a close-quarters fight, grunts, the clang of metal, and a pained, guttural roar.
Then his voice, broken and anguished, cut through the chaos. “Ice… don’t… do this…”
They could all hear it in the background, the wet, tearing sound of a package being ripped open. A medical kit.
“Hang on,” Breakneck’s voice was a raw, desperate plea. “Please… please…”
Blair’s heart seized. “Breakneck!” she yelled into her mic, her voice tight with anguish. There was no answer. It was like he couldn’t hear her. His world had shrunk to the man bleeding out on the floor in front of him.
“Break!” Kodiak’s voice boomed over the comms, cutting through the tension in the helicopter. He held up a hand, a silent command for everyone to hold their positions. “What’s the situation! Talk to us, brother! Where are you?”
There was a ragged gasp, then his voice, broken and lost, came over the comm. “He’s down…stabbed. Left—left—lower abdomen. So…much blood. Administered Celox. It’s slowing the bleeding.”
Blair’s breath caught. She could hear the clinical detachment in his voice, the operator reporting on his patient, but underneath it was a tremor of pure terror. She noted how calm Kodiak’s voice was, a medic’s mask hiding the pain he must be feeling for his fallen teammate and his brother-in-arms.
“Break, breathe, man. Breathe.” Kodiak’s voice was a steady anchor in the storm.
Over the comms, they could hear him taking deep, shuddering breaths, forcing air into his lungs.
“Tell us where you are,” Kodiak pressed.
“Cannery.”
The word was a lifeline. In the helicopter, a collective, silent breath of relief passed through the entire SEAL team. They had a location.
Blair was already moving, leaning forward to yell at the pilot. “Ederly Cannery! You know it?” The pilot gave a sharp nod.
Blair’s voice was soft, urgent, a woman in love instead of a commander. “We’re close, babe. We’re on our way. Hang on!”
“Get some plasma in him, now!” Kodiak ordered.
“Okay. You’re close?” Breakneck’s voice was eerily calm now, the voice of a man who had shoved every ounce of emotion into a locked box to do the work that needed to be done.
Preacher looked at Blair, his gaze intense.
“ETA,” she asked into her comm, her own voice tight with a desperate hope she couldn't hide.
“Five minutes,” the pilot’s voice came back, crisp and professional.
Her fear for Breakneck intensified, a clawing panic that threatened to tear her apart, but layered beneath it was a deep, gnawing dread for Iceman.
She had come to know the gruff master chief over the course of the operation, and beneath the hardened, no-nonsense exterior was a man of unwavering loyalty and a dry, surprising wit.
He was Breakneck’s anchor, his mentor, the man who had shaped him into the operator he was.
He had become a friend, and the thought of that steady, unshakable presence bleeding out on a cold concrete floor was unbearable.
She had seen the way Breakneck not only looked up to him but loved him like a father, a profound respect that went far beyond the chain of command.
If they lost Iceman, they wouldn't just be losing a teammate. They would be losing a piece of Breakneck’s soul, and she wasn't sure he could survive that.
The cold, clinical report from Breakneck, stabbed, lower abdomen, so much blood, echoed in her head, each word a fresh wave of nausea.
The cannery came into view, a hulking, rusted skeleton against the gray sky.
Blair’s eyes scanned the ground, desperately, until she saw him.
Breakneck, staggering out from the shadow of the building, Iceman slung over his shoulders, his head lolling, his body limp.
Breakneck moved with a single-minded, animal determination, fatigue in every line of his big, beautiful body, the IV held up as he ran, his boots pounding, his stride eating the ground toward the chopper.
The helicopter touched down in a whirlwind of dust and rotor wash.
The SEALs scrambled out, a blur of tactical gear, converging on Breakneck and Iceman.
Kodiak was the first to reach them, barking orders, taking Iceman’s weight as they loaded him into the chopper, but Breakneck couldn’t let go. “It’s okay, man. We’ve got him.”
He finally released him with a shuddering exhalation.
Blair waited, giving them room to manage Iceman, then she pushed through the guys. Breakneck was standing there, swaying slightly, his face pale and ashen, his pupils blown wide with shock. He blinked at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was real.
Then she saw it. The blood. It was soaked into the bottom of his shirt, just below the vest, a dark, wet stain that spread down the front of his pants. The fabric was ragged, torn, and the blood was fresh, glistening. He looked at her, his face crumpling into a mask of pure, unadulterated anguish.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice raw and broken. “Don’t let him die.”
He stumbled toward her, his legs giving way, his body going limp as the adrenaline finally burned out.
She caught him, the weight of him threatening to pull her down, but she refused to let him go.
Moments later, she wormed her way to Breakneck in the chopper, set his head in her lap, her hand shaking as she combed her fingers through his hair over and over again as the chopper flew at top speed to the nearest hospital.