16. The Wolf Pack
The Wolf Pack
BOYD
The heat acts as a distant memory.
I press my back against the engine block’s valve cover, but the iron runs dead. The warmth keeping me alive for the last hour bled out into the storm, stolen by the wind and the sub-zero dark. Now the metal feels like just another slab of cold, sucking the life out of my spine.
I should move.
The thought forms slowly, drifting through the slush in my brain like a piece of driftwood.
Merge, run, kill.
But the signals don’t reach my legs. My body turns to a tomb. I can’t feel my feet or my hands. The shivering, violent enough to rattle my teeth ten minutes ago, has stopped.
That’s the end.
I know the physiology. The cessation of shivering signals the body waving the white flag. Thermogenesis has ceased. The core temperature dropped below ninety degrees. The blood thickens, turning to sludge. The heart slows down, preparing to stop.
Get up.
I try.
I command the quadriceps to fire.
Nothing happens. I freeze in place, curled into a fetal ball inside the engine bay of a wrecked truck, wrapped in a piece of crinkling foil offering as much protection as a prayer.
The darkness at the edges of my vision creeps inward. Soft. Velvety. Promising sleep.
Iris.
Her face swims up out of the black. Not terrified or crying. She looks like she did in the kitchen, her hand on my chest, telling me to stop being a wall.
Come get me, Boyd.
“I’m trying.” I push the whisper out.
The words don’t make a sound. My lips freeze shut.
The hallucination shifts. The wind howling through the grille changes pitch, becoming a rhythmic beating.
Thwup-thwup-thwup.
A heartbeat.
No. Too loud. Too mechanical.
The ground beneath the truck vibrates. The snow on the hood dances, shaking loose.
A light cuts through the storm.
It hits blinding, a pillar of white fire descending from the heavens, sweeping over the wreckage, illuminating the trees, the snow, the blood.
Angels?
No. I don’t believe in angels.
Demons.
They came back. The cleanup crew. Mercer sent the team to finish the job.
Rage ignites in the marrow of my bones. A coal buried so deep the cold can’t reach it.
Not yet.
I won’t die on my knees or hiding in a hole.
I fumble for the SIG. I use clumsy claws fused with cold. I smash my hand against the holster, dislodging the weapon. I jam it between my knees to rack the slide, using body weight because my grip strength is gone.
Click.
Live round.
I drag myself out of the engine bay.
I fall into the snow. The impact barely registers through the numbness.
I push myself up. I stagger. My legs buckle, but I fight, locking my knees to stand.
The light sits right on top of me. The wind from the rotors forms a hurricane, whipping the snow into a blinding vortex.
A shadow drops from the sky. Then another.
Fast ropes. Men sliding down into the kill zone.
They hit the ground running. Weapons raised. Lasers cut through the dark.
I raise the SIG.
I waver. The gun weighs a thousand pounds. I can’t find the sight picture or the trigger.
“Drop it.”
A distorted, amplified voice cuts through the air.
“Weapon. Drop the weapon.”
I don’t drop it. I sway, aiming at the lead shadow.
Come on. Take the shot.
The shadow rushes me.
I try firing. Misfire. The neural connection sits severed.
Impact.
The shadow hits me low in a brutal tackle.
We go down hard. The air leaves my lungs. The gun flies from my grip, disappearing into the drift.
I thrash.
I strike out blindly. I aim for the throat and eyes like a feral animal cornered in a trap.
“Boyd. Down. Stay down.”
The voice sounds familiar, built of gravel and granite.
Wraith?
I don’t care. It’s a trick.
I land a punch on a Kevlar vest, breaking the skin on my knuckles.
“Secure him.”
Another weight lands on my legs. Leaden. Immovable.
Bronco?
I roar a soundless scream of frustration.
“Get off me. They have her.”
“We know. We know, brother. We got you.”
A hand clamps onto my shoulder. Hard. Grounding.
“Hold him still. He’s hypothermic. He doesn’t know who we are.”
I look up.
A face hovers over mine. Sharp angles. Dark gaze behind tactical goggles.
Dax Calloway. Wraith. The sniper.
“Boyd.” His voice cuts through the wind. “It’s Wraith. You’re safe. Stand down.”
“Iris...”
“We’re going to get her. But we have to get you first.”
“No time...”
“Ford, hit him.”
“On it.”
A sharp pinch bites my neck.
Warmth floods my system. Not the burning heat of the epi, but a soft, sliding darkness.
“No—”
I fight the drug, trying to push them off.
“Load him up.” Wraith issues the order. “We’re burning daylight.”
The world tilts as I’m lifted into the air. The rotor wash beats against my face.
Then the darkness wins.
Consciousness returns in jagged shards.
Pain.
The first constant. A screaming, burning agony in my hands and feet, like a blowtorch to my skin.
I gasp, arching my back, trying to escape the fire.
“Easy. Hold him.”
Hands press me down.
I sit up.
Red light. Vibration. The smell of jet fuel and sterile saline.
I’m inside a Blackhawk, stripped down to my boxers, covered in heated thermal blankets. Wires trail from my chest. An IV line runs into the crook of my elbow.
Someone rubs my feet. Hard.
I kick out.
“Quit kicking me, you son of a bitch. I’m trying to save your toes.”
I blink.
Ford Sterling. Bronco. He sits at the end of the stretcher, massive shoulders hunched, working circulation back into my frozen limbs, looking like a Viking stumbling into a sterile field.
“Ford.”
My voice scrapes out, a rusty hinge.
“He’s back.” Bronco doesn’t look up. “Hey, sleeping beauty. You decided to rejoin the living?”
I try to sit. The movement makes the cabin spin.
“Where...”
“Five mikes out from the LZ,” a voice calls from my left.
I turn my head.
Declan Hutchinson. Hutch.
He sits on the jump seat, looking at a tablet. He isn’t wearing a suit today. He’s kitted out in full tactical rattle: plate carrier, drop holster, comms headset. The chief came out from behind the desk.
He looks tired, the lines around his eyes carving deep trenches.
“You look like hell, Vance.”
“I feel like it.” I look at the IV bag swinging from the ceiling dispensing warmed fluids. “Iris.” Her name centers me, stopping the spinning. “Where is she?”
“Copperhead Mine.” Hutch taps the screen. “Cipher has a lock on her signal. It’s stationary.”
“Is she—”
“She’s alive,” Hutch cuts in. “She’s online. She accessed a satellite uplink twenty minutes ago.”
“She’s hacking?”
“She’s stalling. She set up a digital dead man’s switch. She bought us time.”
Pride flares inside me, hot and fierce. Smart girl.
“We need to move.” I tear at the blankets. “Get these things off me.”
“You have hypothermia.” Bronco doesn’t stop his work on my feet. “Your core temp hit ninety-two when we pulled you. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m going.” I rip the IV tape from my arm.
“Boyd, stop.” Hutch points a finger. “Or we’ll sedate you.”
“Don’t give me orders. Not today.” I swing my legs over the side of the stretcher.
The pain in my feet proves blinding. I grit my teeth, forcing a groan back down my throat.
“I lost her.” I look Hutch in the eye. “I promised I would keep her safe, and I let them take her. I’m not sitting in this bird while she’s in that hole with Mercer. ”
Hutch stares at me, seeing the guilt and the rage. He knows better than to argue with a man who possesses nothing left to lose.
“About what I expected you to say.” He nods once. “Bronco, give him his gear. Which means you’re coming with us. But it also means you get your ass back under the blankets. You want to join the party, you warm up your body first. I need you thinking clearly, not delirious with shock.”
“I’m not delirious.”
“Says the man who pointed a weapon in my face,” Bronco grunts, letting go of my feet. “If you lose those toes, don’t come crying to me. You got one hell of a way of saying hello.” He reaches under the bench and pulls out a duffel bag.
I dress awkwardly on the stretcher. Combat pants. Thermal shirt. Kevlar vest. All dry. All warm.
Every movement hurts. My muscles run stiff, filled with lactic acid, but pain is good. It sharpens the mind.
When I lace my boots, my fingers fumble numb.
“Let me,” a voice cuts through the cabin noise.
I look up.
Silas Jensen. Rook.
He unfolds from the shadows of the cockpit at his full height, the weight of him filling the tight cabin space. He drops to one knee in front of me, his hands quick and efficient, tying the laces. Up close, the storm-grey eyes catch the red cabin light, steady and reading.
“They have a perimeter.” His voice is a gravel baritone, slow with the drawl he never bothers to mask. “Twelve hostiles outside. Heavy weapons. Snipers in the towers.”
“Inside?”
“Unknown. But Mercer is there. And his personal guard.”
“We breach.” I grab my gear. “Hard and fast.”
“That’s the plan.” Hutch secures his tablet. “Wraith is on the strut. He’ll clear the towers on approach. Bronco puts us down in the courtyard. We go in through the main doors.”
“No.”
They all look at me.
“It’s a fatal funnel.” I strap a rig on. “They’ll wait for a frontal assault. They’ll kill her before we get through the entrance.”
“You have a better idea?” Bronco hands me an MK18 rifle. Short barrel. Suppressed.
I check the chamber. I check the optic.
“We don’t go through the door. We go through the roof.”
I look at Hutch.
“The mine has a ventilation system via old shafts. They come up in the processing plant. We rappel down the main intake. We drop right on top of them.”
“That’s tight.” Rook pulls his sidearm to check. “And dark.”
“I like the dark.”
Hutch studies me, weighing the risk along with the asset.
“Cipher.” Hutch keys his headset. “Can you pull the schematics for the ventilation system?”
“Already done.” Cipher’s voice crackles over the cabin speakers. “Boyd is right. There’s an intake shaft on the north ridge dropping directly into the main sorting bay. It bypasses the perimeter checkpoints.”
Hutch looks at me. A taut, grim smile spreads across his face.
“Alright. We do it your way.”
Bronco’s voice crackles over the intercom.
“One minute. Lights out.”
The red cabin lights die, plunging us into darkness. The mood shifts instantly, killing the banter and vanishing the concern.
Hutch stands and grabs the overhead rail.
“Rules of engagement.” He hardens his tone. “Hostiles are cleared hot. No warning shots. No prisoners. We’re here for Iris Kincaid. Everyone else is collateral.”
“Copy,” Bronco growls, racking a shotgun.
“Copy.” Rook checks his suppressed pistol.
“Clear.” Wraith signals from the door gunner position.
I stand and move to the open door.
The wind shrieks past the fuselage. Below us, the mountains form a jagged sea of black and white.
A cluster of yellow lights glows in the distance. The mine, a stain on the pristine snow.
I imagine Iris in there. Waiting.
I’m coming.
“Cipher.” I key the comms. “Do you have a visual on Iris?”
“Negative on visual,” Cipher replies instantly. “But her signal is active.”
“Thirty seconds,” Bronco’s warning rips over the noise.
I clip my safety line to the floor ring. I step out onto the skid. The cold hits me, but the hurt is gone. It feels like home.
I look at the men behind me. My brothers. My pack.
Hutch. Bronco. Rook. Wraith.
They are here for me. They are here for her.
“Let’s go to work.”
The chopper banks hard. We drop toward the mountain and hit the ground on the north ridge, two hundred yards above the facility.
The snow runs waist-deep, but we move fast. Wraith takes the lead, his thermal scope scanning the darkness.
“Two tangos,” he whispers over the comms. “Patrol. North fence.”
“Take them,” Hutch issues the kill order.
Pfft. Pfft.
Two soft coughs from Wraith’s rifle.
Down the hill, two heat signatures drop into the snow.
“Clear.”
We move to the intake shaft. It’s a massive concrete throat sticking out of the ground, covered by a rusted grate.
Bronco moves to the grate, pulling a set of bolt cutters from his pack. Snap. Snap. The lock falls.
He heaves the iron cover open.
Blackness yawns below us. The smell of stale air and rust drifts up.
“It’s a straight drop.” Bronco shines a red light down. “Fifty feet. Then a transition to a catwalk.”
“I’m first.”
Hutch grabs my arm.
“Boyd. You’re compromised. If you freeze up down there.”
“I won’t.”
I look at him.
“She’s mine, Hutch. I go first.”
He holds my gaze for a second. Then he nods.
“Don’t miss.”
I hook my rappel line to the frame, step over the edge, and drop into the dark. Darkness blurs past me. I hit the catwalk with a soft thud. I unclip and raise my rifle.
“Clear.”
One by one, the team drops behind me.
We push inside, moving along the catwalk. Below us, the processing floor is quiet. A few guards patrol the trucks.
Cipher’s voice buzzes in my ear.
“Boyd. Movement in the command office. Mercer is moving. He’s heading toward the catwalks.”
“Toward Iris?”
“Affirmative. And Boyd, the timer she set? It just hit zero.”
My heart stops.
“What happens at zero?”
“I don’t know.”
A siren screams to life.
Not a breach alarm. A fire alarm.
The sprinklers overhead explode.
Water rains down on the facility. Cold, dirty water.
Chaos erupts below. The guards shout, looking up.
“Now.” I cut loose the order.
We open fire.
The element of surprise is absolute as we rain hell from the catwalks. The suppressors turn the gunshots into whispers, but the impacts hit loud. Bodies drop.
I ignore the fight below and sprint along the catwalk. There’s a glass office at the end of the gantry.
And Iris is inside.
She stands by the door. Soaking wet. Holding something in her hand. A flare? No. A lighter.
And Mercer is there. Outside the glass door. Trying to force it open.
I raise my rifle.
“Mercer.” The name tears out of me.
He turns, his gaze locking on me. The dead man walking.
His expression goes slack.
Ballistic glass stands between us, a slab rated to stop a .308. A body shot is wasted on it, and I don’t need his heart. I need him off that door, away from her, and I need the one barrier left in this room gone.
I sight center-mass on the panel itself. I don’t offer surrender.
I empty into the pane.