19. Grizzly
NINETEEN
GRIZZLY
The final ridge wasn’t a ridge anymore; it was a tilting graveyard of limestone and ash.
From his position behind Thea, Grizzly watched the world warping.
The morning sun was a bruised, sickly gold, struggling to pierce the stratospheric injection of grit that turned the valley into a sepia-toned nightmare.
Ahead, the Vanguard landing pad sat like a scar on the granite. Thorne’s personal helicopter, a sleek, white AgustaWestland, idled, its rotors cutting a slow, lazy rhythm through the haze.
Grizzly clicked the master power on his bone-conduction headset to Off. He saw Picasso, Reef, Hurricane, and Wyatt follow suit. The tactical Net went dead. No radio chatter, no electronic handshakes for Thorne’s sensors to find. They were officially ghosts.
He tapped his throat and made a flat cutting motion: Silent running.
They began the descent, a hazardous negotiation with a mountain that had stopped playing by the rules.
The air was a thick slurry of ash and steam that coated Ben’s throat like ground glass, making every breath a rasping struggle.
They moved in a staggered column, Thea picking the path while he acted as the armor at her back.
Halfway down the slope, the ground-truth failed.
Reef was three paces to the left, his eyes scanning the ridgeline for any sign of the drone, when the solid granite beneath his boots simply vanished into a sudden, vertical sink.
“Reef!” Hurricane hissed, a jagged sound that barely cleared his teeth.
Hurricane lunged, his knees hitting the ground with a bone-jarring thud as he reached for the disappearing splash of Reef’s tactical vest. He managed to snag the drag-handle just as Reef disappeared waist-deep into a pocket of boiling mud.
The suction of the slurry was immense, a wet, heavy gravity that fought to swallow them both.
The momentum was too much for the slick terrain. Hurricane’s boots skidded on the greasy layer of ash, losing their bite entirely. He was pulled forward, his chest slamming against the lip of the sinkhole as he slid on his stomach. Before he could find an anchor, the shelf of ash buckled.
Hurricane’s upper body pitched over the edge, his torso dangling precariously over the bubbling pit.
He was face-to-face with the sulfurous heat, his arm straining nearly out of its socket as he refused to let go of the younger SEAL.
Only his hips and legs remained on the solid ground, his boots kicking frantically for purchase against the slick ash as the weight of Reef, doubled by the mud, threatened to pull him the rest of the way in.
Grizzly and Picasso were on them in a heartbeat.
Grizzly’s iron grip catching Reef’s harness while Picasso grabbed Hurricane.
With a muffled grunt and every ounce of strength, they hauled both men out and slammed them onto a stable shelf of granite before the geothermal heat could melt through their boots.
Wyatt was there before they could even find their footing. The PJ shoved them toward a patch of dry rock, his hands moving with clinical speed. He didn’t ask if they were okay as he checked the structural integrity of their gear.
“Boots are holding,” Wyatt mouthed, his voice barely a vibration.
He splashed a tiny bit of sterile water over a raw, bloody scrape on Hurricane’s elbow where the grit had stripped the skin, then squeezed Reef’s shoulder.
He felt for the heat radiating from their lower legs. “Medical check is green. Can you run?”
Reef took a shaky, jagged breath. Grizzly saw the Mexico chill return to his teammate’s eyes: the dilated pupils of a man who could still feel the phantom weight of a collapsing city. Reef looked at the bubbling pit that had almost claimed him, then up at Wyatt. He bared his teeth in a forced grin
Reef signed quickly, “Now I guess I need to add volcanoes to that ‘Most Hated’ list, huh?”
The joke was thin, but the SEAL’s focused mind was back online. Reef gave a quick nod of thanks to Grizzly and Picasso, checking to make sure his Glock was still in the holster, and signaled Ready.
They closed the final hundred yards inch by grueling inch, their bodies pressed low as they hauled themselves through clinging mud and choking ash.
Every movement was deliberate, muscles straining against the slick, unforgiving ground.
Grizzly signaled the team to drop into the lee of a massive service crate on the edge of the tarmac, offering a brief shelter from the bitter wind.
Wyatt looked at the helicopter, then met his brother’s gaze and signaled toward the cockpit: I can fly it.
He followed with a series of quick, sharp gestures, a hybrid of official PJ signals and a private Adams dialect they had refined over a decade of shared leaves.
They had used that silent language to navigate everything from high-altitude rescue drills to crowded bars in San Diego when they were nineteen and trying to vet potential dates without saying a word.
Grizzly felt a fleeting ghost of a grin. He knew that specific snap of Wyatt’s wrist. His brother was cocky enough to know he could fly it even if the engine was “unvetted” and the flight computer likely “brick-locked.” He also had a PJ workaround that would get them off the ground.
Picasso signaled back with a sharp, downward slice: Negative. He tapped his ear and mimed a locking motion, warning that the FADEC system would be useless without a diagnostic handshake from the console.
Wyatt countered with a slow, deliberate thumbs-up, followed by a gesture that meant Trust the Air Force.
Grizzly didn’t hesitate. He looked at Picasso and gave a single, firm nod. He’d seen Wyatt hot-wire a tractor at ten and navigate a C-130 through a monsoon at twenty-five. If Wyatt said he could make the machine breathe, Grizzly would bet the farm on it.
Wyatt countered with a shrug, a warrior’s math. He signaled toward the tilting ridge and then back to the team: No other choice. We take the risk.
Grizzly made a circling motion with his hand: Time to split. He tapped his palm twice: Two teams.
They moved like a single organism. Wyatt and Falcon dropped into the lee of the chopper. Up the ramp, Ben took point as the shield, keeping protective space around Thea who moved steadily beside him. Reef ghosted ahead, scanning the flanks, while Picasso took the high ground.
They reached the aft console crate. Grizzly didn’t use a weapon when the Vanguard technician turned around. He simply clamped a massive hand over the man’s mouth and drove him into the metal side of the crate. The tech’s eyes went wide with terror, but the silence remained absolute.
With the man restrained, Thea stayed just behind Ben, and her eyes flicked to his for the signal.
When he gave a slight nod, she slipped past him to the console.
Her fingers moved over the keys with a steady economy.
Every second became tactile, the silent clack of a key and the yellow blink of the uplink LED on the tablet Reef held for her.
A shadow from the roof of the main hangar shifted. Picasso’s hand snapped up in a silent Hold. He tilted his thumb, signaling One minute.
Reef gripped the tablet, his knuckles bone-white against the frame, while Thea fed the cipher into the handshake.
Ben watched her, marveling at the way she had completely checked out of the firefight. She didn't so much as blink when a muzzle flashed on the hangar roof, and she seemed totally unaware of the way he was shifting his weight to put his own torso between her and the sniper's line of sight.
To her, the screaming mountain and the armed contractors were just background noise; the only thing that existed for her was that scrolling green code.
Ben was struck by a sudden, jarring truth: the girl who could hear the mountain’s pulse was the only person in the entire valley who didn't look terrified.
The uplink LED blinked from amber to green.
Thea’s screen flashed green, followed by a shuddering banner: UPLINK ESTABLISHED.
For a heartbeat, the silence of the pad was absolute, broken only by the high-frequency whirr of the satellite link. Grizzly reached up, clicking his headset back to life.
“Ranch Lead, this is Atlantic One,” he rasped. “We have the link. Give us the curtain!”
“Copy that, Atlantic One!” Mace’s voice roared in his ear. “Tex is hitting the switch. Go! Go! Go!”
Grizzly didn’t wait for a second invitation. He grabbed Thea’s upper arm, providing the forward momentum she needed to clear the service crate. “Now! Sprint!”
They broke cover, their boots hammering against the ash-slicked concrete toward the idling AgustaWestland. Reef and Picasso stayed a half-step behind, rifles raised, scanning the dark silhouette of the main hangar roof.
A shadow on the roofline shifted. A muzzle flashed, a silent, suppressed puff of dust hitting the pavement inches from Thea’s heel.
“Sniper!” Reef roared, dropping to one knee and returning fire. The suppressed cough-cough-cough of his rifle was the only answer as he forced the shooter to duck behind a vent stack.
“Mace, where’s my curtain?” Grizzly yelled into the Net.
Above them, on the roof of the hangar, the night was suddenly lit by a series of muffled thumps.
The silo’s automated fire-suppression system, conveniently re-programmed by Tex’s digital wizardry, exploded into life.
A massive, churning wave of high-expansion white foam erupted from the vents, burying the roof and the sniper beneath three feet of thick, chemical suds.
“Foam is down!” Mace yelled, laughing. “He’s blind and sticky, Grizz! Move!”
With the sniper neutralized, the team hit the side of the helicopter like a tidal wave.
Reef provided one last burst of suppressive fire against the contractor clusters near the hangar before diving into the bay.
Ben hauled Thea inside, slamming his back against the bulkhead and shielding her with his massive frame.
Wyatt didn’t wait for them to strap in before he slammed the throttles forward. The turbines screamed to life, a high-pitched howl that drowned out the mountain and sirens alike. Rotors bit into thick, ash-laden air, and for the briefest miracle, the machine took the strain.
The helicopter rose, not graceful, but violently alive, a jarring sequence of piston-shudder and hot wind.
For a breath, they had sky between them and the mountain’s mouth.
“Pacific One to Atlantic One,” Wolf’s voice cut through the static, long and thin like a whip crack of reality. “We have you on visual. Vector locked. We’re providing high-cover for your transit to the south pasture. Welcome back to the world, boys.”
Ben leaned his head back against the vibrating metal, his hand still locked around Thea’s. He looked out at the Stone Ribs as they receded into the haze. They had Thorne’s ride, they had his data, and they had a Pacific escort home.
“Wyatt, get us to the ranch,” Grizzly hissed into the Net. “Ma’s already started the coffee, and I think I’ve had enough of this mountain for one night.”