Chapter 7
7
Nothing crossed Hazard’s mind except the firefight they were currently trying to live through, his mind focusing on the black-and-white elements of the battlefield—kill or be killed.
“Check in,” Iceman’s voice came over the comm. Hazard held his breath at the silence where Breakneck’s voice should have been.
His boss was back on the comms. “Breakneck? How copy?” Except for a faint static, complete silence. “Kid, how copy?”
Hazard’s chest expanded and he sighed hard. Just because Breakneck wasn’t answering didn’t mean he wasn’t alive. That kid was…resourceful, a wealth of personality behind those dark, depthless eyes. He was probably busy covering their asses.
Hazard looked out to the field, tracers of the weapons aimed at them almost nonstop like fireflies in the darkness. They had them pinned down, yet they hadn’t moved in. After a moment, it dawned on him. They were waiting for something. Who did these guys think they were dealing with? Novices?
Heedless of the bullets flying over him, he belly-crawled into the open. SEALs were never out of the fight, even if they were giving ground. As direct-action guys, retreating wasn’t in their vocabulary.
“Hazard! What the fuck are you doing?” Iceman growled over the comms.
“Recon, boss. They’re keeping us pinned down for a reason. I want to know what it is.”As a team, they relied on speed, surprise, and violence of action to achieve their goals, but Hazard had to be strategic in this instance. It was time for stealth.
He wanted to get in contact with TOC. They hadn’t been able to raise them on their communication channel, and without oversight, good old-fashioned surveillance would have to do. If the cartel had ambushed them, had they also ambushed their center of command? And if they had, Leigh…all the people they relied on…he couldn’t finish that thought. He needed to be on point right now.
“Keep your goddamn head down,” Iceman ordered, a voice echoing years of experience.
Hazard noticed to his left that there was a clump of trees that would give him some cover, although getting there was going to be a long sprint into possible incoming fire. From that vantage point, he would be able to get a closer perspective and discover the cartel’s plan for them. He was sure none of it was going to be good.
Breakneck had to break cover because they’d pinpointed his location, and if he’d stayed there, he would have been aerated.
As a SEAL he’d only put into practice what he’d studied about Stoicism, a philosophy he was very fond of, and had helped him immensely through BUD/S, a process that had been the most punishing thing he’d ever actively and eagerly volunteered for. It was a practice in the development of self-control, dealing primarily with emotions, especially ones that were debilitating like anger, fear, and lust in its many forms.
In this instance, he needed every coping mechanism he’d ever learned to respond courageously when he was fearful, and calmly when he was angry. If he lost his shit now, he would lose his brothers.
He preferred engaging in a direct firefight or even an ambush than dealing with indirect fire or an IED. As a SEAL, he was trained to react and counterattack, giving what he considered control over the situation. But right now, he was running and gunning, controlling his emotions during extreme danger, including his fury and his anxiety for his guys, immediately assessing the situation and reacting within his limitations in the face of death.
Gunfire peppered the air, zinging and whistling around him, the leaves dancing from the impact. He plowed through the jungle in a strategic arch that would take him back to his teammates pinned down in the warehouse. Well aware a moving target was harder to hit, he couldn’t communicate with Iceman without stopping, and that wasn’t an option at the moment, not with the cartel boys on his heels. Breakneck really liked breathing.
He wasn’t exactly winded, but the heat and humidity, even in the dark of night, took its toll. Breakneck jumped over dense plants, rocks, pushing at branches, barreling through vines and vegetation. He had a distinct advantage over the goons that chased him. His NVGs made night into day. He grinned, murmuring to himself “ Catch me if you can.”
His immediate assessment of the situation was a royal goatscrew of monumental proportions. The cartel had duped them, lured them, and closed the trap. He aimed to turn those tables on the bastards. Through the green glow of his NVGs he saw what he’d been looking for, a clot of thick vegetation that would make a beautiful hidey-hole so he could begin his Turn the Tables Mission. He never stopped running, just dropped down to his hip, the bulky weight of his pack helping gravity, and like a baseball player sliding into home base, smooth as molasses. He slithered into the brush, pulled his pistol, screwed on the silencer and waited.
His teammates were surrounded, and their overwatch was on the run. It was clear to him that not only had the cartel known the SEALs would be here, but that they deployed a dog. They had slyly lain in wait downwind from Bones’s nose, springing this surprise on them.
The irony wasn’t lost on him, and payback was a lethal bitch.
He heard them crashing past, counting softly. One, two, three, four, five. Five. That was manageable. He shrugged out of his pack, and his shirt and vest. With quick flicks of his wrists, he removed his boots and socks, leaving him in nothing but his black T-shirt and camo pants. He would feel the ground better, connect to the earth, and make absolutely no noise, making him swift and deadly. Crawling out from under his cover, he holstered his pistol, and pulled out his combat knife.
He caught up to the fifth man, who was laboring. Not many people trained as hard as Navy SEALs, and from the sound of it, this man was gasping for breath. Breakneck lunged and tackled him, set his knee in the middle of his back, grabbed a handful of hair in his fist, and swiped the knife across his throat, all in five seconds flat. Looking up, he checked to make sure none of the others had stopped, but the makeshift path they had made through the jungle was undisturbed.
He wiped the blood on the guy's shirt and rose. Four to go. Speed was of the essence and those goons would realize they were chasing air soon. It was time to bring this to a swift close. He had to get back to his brothers. He took off again, dispatching the fourth guy who was totally winded and resting, and the third guy who was trying to keep up with the two leaders.
No more time to spare, he shouted at the top of his lungs in a long, drawn-out scream. That would get their attention. He slipped into the shadows, every cell in his body primed like a panther in the dark.
When they materialized, slowing down to see their people on the ground, they looked around. Breakneck stepped out of cover. Moving lightning quick, he disarmed the first man in a red shirt, chucking his weapons into the brush. The second man brought up his rifle, but Breakneck threw his knife and the man gurgled as it embedded in his throat, and he dropped down to the ground. Red Shirt lunged at him with a flash of metal. Breakneck danced away, pivoting and catching the man’s blade hand at the elbow, letting the man’s momentum carry his face straight into Breakneck’s flat palm. The crunching sound told him the guy’s nose was broken and the look on his face was fleeting confusion as to why he was dying.
Breakneck never looked away. His heritage taught him how to hunt and that every creature’s soul was sacred. When he took a man’s life, he owed them his attention. He’d taken something special, robbed them of their very existence. But there was no remorse. This man and his friends had decided that drug running was more important than human life, choosing violence instead of giving back to the world. Red Shirt dropped to the ground.
With the suppressed pistol, he put two head shots into each man, then grabbed up his knife and wiped it clean again. He turned toward the furious battle.
His brothers were in grave trouble, every one of them a wonderful burden on his heart. When he reached his gear, after redressing, and checking his weapon, he pressed his comm. “Iceman?”
Suddenly, the sound of a door slamming open came from his right. Hazard turned his head to find one of the CNP members running out, the shouts of his teammates trying to stop him, but it was too late. He didn’t get far as bullets riddled him, and he dropped to the ground.
His life wasn’t sacrificed in vain. All the attention of the cartel focused on that poor soul gave Hazard a window of opportunity and the best chance for not only him but everyone in that warehouse to live.
He rose into a crouch and ran to the trees. No one took notice. They were too focused on the warehouse, too focused on the fact that their quarry was seemingly powerless. How wrong they would find out they were. They were throwing lead like they had an infinite cache, fucking gun runners of the world, supplying criminals, insurgents, and lunatics with weapons.
He moved silently toward the gunfire, the trees giving him the cover he hoped. He only heard an occasional thunk. He pressed his body up against the trees as he leap-frogged through them until he got to the perimeter’s edge.
There was more cover, but it was on the other side of a swarth of open space, but if he could get over there, it would give him a better vantage point.
On a good day, they would be connected to TOC, and he would have called in air support, navigated them to this position and taken these bastards out. But today wasn’t that day. The cartel was determined, merciless, and planned to make an example out of their SEAL team as a show of force, that they wouldn’t be cowed, and justice was nothing more than something to spit at.
He was well aware that exposing himself could possibly draw their attention, and once he did, he would be cut off and effectively pinned down, but that didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was getting the vital information they needed to assess the situation and counterattack.
The only shred of advantage he had was that he could see them clearly, but they would be hard-pressed to see him. Sliding against the tree, he made his move, racing across the divide and into the cover of the trees.
He crouched, adrenaline pouring into his system, his heart pounding with the thrill of sneaking up on this force, but then his mouth went dry, and his blood froze. He reached for the radio.
But was preempted by their silent teammate. When he heard Break’s voice, relief rushed through him.
“Iceman?”
“Junior, you’re giving me gray hairs.”
“Sorry about that, boss. Had a situation.”
“You good?”
“I handled it.” He sounded as cool as a cucumber. Fucking kid. “I’m heading back to give you cover. I’ll let you know when I’m in position.”
“Ice,” Hazard said. “He better hurry. We’ve got a big problem.”
Breakneck picked up his pace. Hazard said they had a technical coming in, a non-standard tactical vehicle. The NSTV was a run-of-the-mill pickup truck modified to mount a fifty-caliber heavy machine gun. His mission was to prevent that fucking tech from drawing down on his brothers. It would rip them to shreds, that flimsy warehouse not enough cover for a fifty-cal monster. But that was the way of monsters, and they ignored the little guy, a David and Goliath story. Well, he was Uncle Sam’s baby-faced killer, and he wasn’t carrying a slingshot. He was toting a lethal weapon with premier sights that gave Breakneck the ability to use his masterful perfect zero. Yeah, DEVGRU didn’t skimp on their tools of war, allowing him to punch far above his weight and fight on his terms.
He loved his rifle, loved the weapons that allowed him to do his job. But it was his uncanny and unwavering marksmanship that had really made a splash in BUD/S. People were taking bets on how many career kills he’d have before he even pinned on his Trident. Not that he cared about that. He only cared about hitting whatever he was aiming at. He was immediately tagged for sniper school, and he graduated at the top of his class. Several teams had tried to poach him, but he went where he was told.
He modified his barrel length to a fourteen-point-five-inch, and for short-range work where punch and reach were offset by a need for compactness, inches in a man’s firearm, like in a man’s dick, often counted.
He was the sharpest and most deadly part of that spear. The tip. Right out there on the edge, the eyes and ears of the team. Their snarling, snapping overwatch watchdog.
His dad had saved his team just like Breakneck planned to save his. But he’d only heard that in stories, since his dad was killed in combat when he was just a kid. His mom was happy when he played his video games and excelled in school. She thought he was going to be a geek and settle into normal life. But that wasn’t where he was headed. He always knew it.
His dad had been one hundred percent warrior, and every moment of his adult life after his training had been spent operating. Although he couldn’t understand it back then when he was growing up, he understood it now. Operating was where SEALs wanted to be, and by going into the life his father had lived, he understood him better than he ever had. Time away from family was extensive. Everyone from parents, wives, and children had to cope with an operator’s absence. For him and his mom, his dad’s absence became permanent, and the struggle of a small boy moving from childhood to manhood with no father at home was as hard as hell. But his dad chose to be a full-time warrior and a part-time dad. Breakneck had come to terms with that, and what was more important to him was to make the most of his own life. Without having to think about it, he knew that above anything else that would make his dad proud.
It’d been six months since he’d seen his mom, and now that he was fighting for his life, he wanted to see her in the worst way.
He reached the best spot on the battlefield. The one those five guys had chased him away from. He went to his knees, then to his belly, releasing the tripod on his rifle, then sighting down on the enemy as they pounded his guys below him, the view clear, magnified, and primed.
He swiveled his rifle, taking in all the targets through the high-powered scope, but didn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t yet time. He spied Hazard in a copse of trees.
“I got you, Hazard. Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
The first shot he put in the engine, the second into the driver, and the third into the gunner, bang, bang, bang in rapid, precision succession. Breakneck took aim at the field, following Hazard’s progress, as gunfire chased him. But Breakneck’s rapid shots were true. He continued to protect him, even as they discovered his position and began firing back, peppering the hill he perched on just below the crest. As Hazard sprinted toward the armored pickup, sonic cracks of bullets were all around him, but he ignored the incoming fire. Once Hazard was close, Breakneck depressed his radio. “Iceman, now!”
Hazard jumped onto the technical’s bed, grabbing up the butterfly triggers of the Browning Machine Gun, Cal. .50, M2 HB, Flexible—a recoil-operated, air-cooled weapon that had been a mainstay in every war since World War II, and used against infantry, light armored vehicles, watercraft, light fortifications, and low-flying aircraft. It had been designed by John Browning and stood the test of time with only minor modifications and design changes. But today, he was going to smoke the cartel members who had ambushed them.
He had to hurry. His team would be coming out of that sorry-excuse-for-cover warehouse to engage the enemy, and he needed to lower the odds.
Noting this was an older model, as the newer ones changed the handgrips to squeeze triggers, he remembered enough about the deadly weapon to fire it effectively. The bolt latch was already locked down into fully automatic mode. This lethal belt-fed weapon had no safety, and neither, at this moment, did he.
He couldn’t worry about his back, that was for Breakneck’s precision shooting to handle, and he put his life in his young-as-hell hands. Taking the weapon out of his team’s field of fire, he left the cartel members to his right to his teammates as small arms fire erupted. He opened his stance for better balance to handle the recoil, then depressed the triggers, absorbing the shock vibrating through his body in rapid succession, and swept the gun on the swivel, mowing down everything in its path in a volley of rapid, unrelenting fire. Those bastards had no chance of survival. The sound was deafening, the pinging of hundreds of cartridges hitting the metal of the bed and sides of the truck never-ending.
Bullets flew at him, hitting the metal plates designed to protect the gunner. Small metal shards peppered his face and ballistic glasses. Half a second later, there was a slight impact on the side of his head that sounded as if he’d been slapped. It was a ricochet or grazing blow, a direct hit would have killed him.
With steely focus, he didn’t even wince. He just kept thinking of his brothers, the people who might need them right now at TOC…and Leigh.
Geezus, if anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself or be able to live with the agony of never finding out where everything still hanging in the air played out, never really know her. The revelation was profound and unexpected as trickles of blood slowly rolled down his cheek. Was there even a chance for them? Was there even hope?
The shove against Leigh’s back was the last straw. She was in pain, held against her will by men who hadn’t blinked an eye at eliminating a whole task force, and despite the late hour, the air didn’t move, the heat cloying. She whirled on the man, heedless of his gun or his sour attitude. “Do you think pushing me every five freaking seconds is going to make my body change so that I can take longer strides? Why don’t I go behind you and test the theory out.”
“You talk too damn much, punta .” He was one of five men who had assaulted TOC. He was the one who had caught her when she’d run. Someone had called him Conde.
“Oh, insults? Really, are you in high school? Do you think that bothers me?” He didn’t have an answer, and Leigh’s plan was just to slow them down as much as possible. They were on foot, which surprised the hell out of her. Their temporary TOC was in ruins about two miles back. Anna had woken up about a mile ago, and she wasn’t moving very fast either. Just another reason to be argumentative. And the fact that if she used all the anger inside her, she could avoid the guilt that twisted her like a pretzel inside. They had been after her, and they had killed everyone in TOC as if they meant nothing. All that blood was on her hands.
Conde narrowed his eyes at her, and she wasn’t intimidated, using her anger to mask the sick feeling working its way into her gut and mind. She’d looked at cold, deadly eyes like that across a courtroom. Threats were spewed at her almost every trial. She’d never back down from evil. She’d fight until her last dying breath, and that could be way, way too soon. But Patch, Jack, and the others deserved her courage and fortitude. If this mission was going to be salvaged, and it had to be, they couldn’t back down from this thuggery and sheer evil. She couldn’t , not for one moment.
“Leigh,” Anna said weakly.
Feeling that bad edginess growing stronger and starting to crawl up the back of her neck ever since she saw her photo, she gave Anna a hard look. The woman gave it back to her in spades, even wounded and concussed.
They wanted her for a reason, and it wasn’t going to be good for her at all. Spit in the face of justice. Yeah, she was the symbol of American justice, a United States Attorney sworn to bring Angel Alzate to stand for his crimes against her citizens, and residually get justice for all the other people he’d murdered in cold blood for profit.
Angel Alzate was going to make an example of her, then he was going to kill her, probably publicly.
There was only one thing she could do. Fight, argue, be a royal pain in the asses of these men, keep them riled up and off guard dealing with her. If they had wanted her dead, they would have killed her back at TOC. Besides, did it matter if they killed her in this dank, dark place in the middle of nowhere or at her final destination?
All these heel-dragging ploys were for one purpose only. Give Hazard and his team time to catch up to them. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that. Unless they had perished in their own ambush, they would be coming for her and Anna.
“He’s right. You do talk too much. Shut the hell up,” Anna said a little stronger.
Oh, she was good. Of course, she was. She was a CIA operative. “Why don’t you make me, bitch.” Leigh shoved Anna, who lifted her chin, anger flashing in her eyes. Whoa, that was impressive.
The men around them traded looks, murmuring softly to each other in Spanish, some laughing, and Leigh was disgusted. Even these animals couldn’t stop their excitement around a legitimate cat fight. Well, a nicely staged, time-consuming cat fight.
“I’m in charge here,” she said and pushed Leigh back.
The men separated and started to make a circle. How stupid could they be? Did they honestly think two professional women with the kind of jobs they had would lose their temper at each other when all they really had against these men was each other?
Unbelievable. But it bought them time, adding more life to the other side of the death equation. Neither she nor Anna had anything to lose here.
“If you’d been better at your job, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” she said, then turned on her heel.
Anna let out a shriek and grabbed a handful of her hair. Damn, the girl wasn’t totally playacting, but she guessed it had to look real.
Anna pulled and Leigh turned around and shoved her so hard she fell. She came up swinging. A wild roundhouse punch that Leigh was too slow to duck. It connected with her jaw and pain exploded all the nerve endings, sending the inside of her lip against her teeth. She tasted blood.
She awkwardly blocked another wild swing and ducked another one, stumbling backward. Anna jumped at her, and they grappled.
The men around them cheered, eyes wide with excitement. Leigh pushed Anna away, ducked a couple more times, but missed the next one as it connected with her eye. She reeled backward.
Then there was a roar in the background, something between fury and a war cry as a man came barreling into the circle. He’d come out of nowhere, and he was cursing and yelling in Spanish as their captors’ excitement immediately turned to fear.
She was still trying to fend off Anna’s attack. There was no patience or quarter in his eyes. He grabbed Leigh by the hair and around her waist, hauling her back. She struggled and her elbow slammed into his nose. Everyone froze. With a curse, he turned her around and hit her for real, a stinging slap against her cheek that sent her to the wet ground, the pain exploding right into her bruised eye. Then he was hauling her up and binding her wrists in front of her. Another man was also binding Anna’s, but there was satisfaction in her eyes.
After about fifteen minutes, she whined until they let her go to the bathroom behind some brush, even untying her hands. After that, she begged for water until they finally stopped and let her drink.
Their leader was looking at her shrewdly. The men called him Marco. “There is no one coming for you, gringa . No one.” He smiled, but she didn’t care that he had figured out her ploy. She knew differently. She felt it in her bones. Hazard and his team were coming. It was just a matter of time, and she hoped that time wouldn’t run out.
Finally, they came to a mass of green, and her mouth dried up. Oh, God . The hum of the jungle sizzled with snaps and chirps. She stopped in her tracks, but someone pushed her on.
Her mind reeled with the stories she’d heard on the plane, and her heart beat hard, more adrenaline slipping through her veins.
A scrap of cloud scudded across the sliver of moon. A sultry breeze whispered through the branches of the heavy trees. A chill raced over Leigh’s flesh, and she stared into the darkness, seeing nothing, but sensing…a presence. The sensation lingered like a dark, intent gaze, and the hair rose on the back of her neck. It was as if it was alive. Ancient, mysterious, primal.
They were taking them into the Darien Gap.