Authors: Megan Mitcham
F
our heavily tinted
, even more heavily armored, SUVs rolled slowly through the gates of a private airfield just outside the Clifton Park city limits. After the last car cleared the fence the lead car’s front end gripped the pavement, stopping abruptly. The two in the middle jerked to a halt, leaving several feet in between. Car four never hit its brakes. The last car’s grill crunched into the third and kept pushing. Black billowed from the screaming tires as it closed the gaps. The lead car reversed, pushing from the other end, compacting the president’s caravan.
Man, it helped to have a Base Branch Operative or two rooted in the security forces of heads of countries.
“I told you to trust me,” Hawk yelled. She gripped the black rope hooked to the ceiling of the HELO and lowered her bottom out the door, bringing her to his level.
“I can’t believe it. How long have they been there?” Zeke’s palms itched to release and repel. Not yet. They still needed the men they’d dropped at the adjacent air base to follow through before they got blown out of the sky.
“Long enough that one of them signed the vehicles’ security check this morning.” Pride glinted in her dark eyes.
“Don’t make it too easy for me. You know I like a challenge.”
“The car’s communications are down. As well as the agents’ inside. Not their guns though. And that damn thing is still armor plated and independently ventilated. We have to break the seal.”
Zeke patted the hydraulic spreader attached to his belt. “I plan to.”
Four jungle-green Humvees breached the tree line on either side of the caravan and barreled toward it. Their tires spit dirt behind them. One gained air off a low hill.
“Non-lethal force unless absolutely necessary. We don’t know who’s corrupt and who’s just doing their job,” Hawk reminded through the comms.
They closed the short distance to the line of SUVs in seconds. Zeke’s fingers ached to draw a bead on the cars below with his AR, while he waited for the broad fronts of the military-grade vehicles to barricade the caravan doors. This was the sticky part. The part where people could die. If the agents inside the SUVs decided to exit with any of the high caliber rifles stowed under the seats or in the back, they’d have no choice but to strike or risk being eliminated themselves.
Instead of striking, the Secret Service followed protocol. They bastioned the president inside the vehicle. The drivers revved the engines and maneuvered their wheels in an effort to gain their freedom. Surrounded on all sides, they had nowhere to go, but they’d never give up.
“Now.” Zeke loosened his grip. He shoved off the landing bar. Gravity sucked him toward the earth.
Hawk followed. The wind whipped her dark ponytail as she fast-roped out of the HELO.
The top of the third SUV—the one that housed the president—came hard and fast. Impact jarred his hips into his spinal column. Every old battle scar smarted, forcing a groan from Zeke’s lips. Maybe he should have squeezed the rope a little. Adrenaline and rage wouldn’t let him back off. Not one bit.
He cleared the rope and dropped to his knees. The metal vibrated from the hum of the engines and all the opposing forces being inflicted upon it. Hawk whispered onto the second SUV’s roof. The tip of the spreader jammed into the tiny crack between the rear passenger door and roof. He pressed his shoulder into the machine.
“Clear,” Hawk said into the comms.
Zeke nodded and switched on the device. Metal groaned and shrieked. The outer edge of the frame slowly bloomed.
A gunshot sang above the roar of a thousand horses.
Then another.
To the left the Humvee’s windshield pocked with two circular spiderwebs. Brass slugs stuck in the layers of bullet resistant glass. The collected calm of battle settled over Zeke. He drew left-handed, ready to annihilate the pistol tip protruding from the barely opened window.
Hawk’s charging form stalled him. Her knees slid across the slick black top. Both hands simultaneously unlatched gas grenades from her vest and launched them through the crack on either side of the weapon.
The boom dully echoed.
Zeke paid it no attention. His gaze already turned back to the spreader’s end, waiting for the bullet that awaited him the moment he breached the door. He shifted the spreader, firmed his grip, and peeled again.
Why the hell couldn’t someone in the car crack a window and try to shoot him? It would make things easier…well, unless he took a bullet.
“You have a quarter-inch yet?” Hawk’s shoulder bumped his. She peered down, but stayed far enough back to keep her head out of the line of fire.
“Barely.” He gritted. “This shit is stout.”
“Great. Hold what you got.” She rummaged through a vest pocket. Her first-aid pouch smacked the roof.
“I’m not shot yet.” Zeke kept the device running to cover their conversation. Not that the chaps would hear them through the tiny hole and the roar of blood in their heads.
“Maybe this way you won’t be.”
She yanked the small medical tubing from the pack and cut off a one-foot segment. The rest of the pack went scattering. “I need this.” Hawk jerked a gas grenade from his vest, but kept the pin engaged. She unsheathed her knife and lifted it into the air.
“I like shot better than blown up.” Zeke winced.
A tiny pop and hiss followed.
Zeke exhaled long and heavily as Hawk stuffed one end of the tube into the hole she’d made in the end of the canister.
“Hold that.” She handed him the pinched end of the tubing, reached for another grenade on his vest, and then repeated the maneuver.
“And people call me crazy.” Zeke kicked toward the back of the car just to keep them guessing.
“You are. You’d rather chance the bullets.”
Hawk pinched the end of the newest tube. She guided it toward the tiny gap and motioned him to do the same. They jammed the plastic ends just inside the opening. On cue they released their hold. The stunning explosion had been the winning ticket on the second car, but this slow leak…
“You know they have rebreathers.” Zeke reminded as they siphoned the gas into the SUV.
“I’m hoping they won’t all get to them.”
Zeke waited as long as his nerves could take it. Coughs and wheezing gasps seeped out through the tiny hole in the door. He rammed the spreader into the breach and worked the metal.
It keened one long moan and gave under the stress, fanning wide. The bulletproof glass crunched and crumbled one fragment at a time.
The wavering end of a pistol extended toward him. An easy bend of the wrist and the agent relinquished his weapon. Gas poured from the rift. He unhooked the hydraulic machine. It clattered to the roof.
Zeke snaked a hand into the fumes and unlocked the door. A biting grip seized his arm. He didn’t wait for a slice of pain. His large palm snatched a handful of meaty flesh and heaved. The body thrashed about. The hold on Zeke’s arm released. He didn’t.
“What happened to ‘wait for my signal’?” Hawk asked.
“Blokes inside didn't get the memo.” Zeke hoisted the face of a secret service agent through the hole and sank his other fist into the man’s jaw.
“One down.” Hawk signaled the Humvee in front of them back. The Base Branch agents moved the truck, and then exited with their weapons drawn, tracking end to end on the SUV. Zeke released the man and bailed from the roof. He motioned the lead agent to the door.
Hawk stood over them, an avenging angel ready to strike the damned. When she gave the nod the agent muscled the door wide. The unconscious man collapsed to the ground. The second Base Branch agent pulled the body back and patted him for weapons.
Zeke reached blind, but kept his vitals covered. His fingers grazed hair. He latched tight and pulled.
The president of the United States grabbed at the rebreather in his mouth with one hand and at the top of his head with the other. Zeke released him. His chest met the earth with a solid thud. The apparatus flew from his mouth. Loud coughs wracked his torso.
Grieves Stockton—the ruler of the free world, the piece of sewer scum—scrambled onto his hands and knees.
“No getting away, Stockton.” Zeke planted a boot on his keister and helped him to the ground. “Arms wide, palms on the ground, if you want to live. Personally, I hope you’re stupid enough to run or fight back.”
The man’s arms stretched on either side of his sprawled form. His fingers stretched wide.
“A damn shame.” Zeke wrenched his arm high, slapped cuffs on him, rolled him over, and patted him down.
The cool composed face of the president boiled over with white hot rage. “My brother always was the weak link, even when we were kids.” Spittle flew from his puckered mouth.
Behind Zeke, the other agents cleared the vehicles one at a time, spreading the Secret Service agents onto the ground, cuffing them, and then loading them into the backs of the Humvees. The two still conscious found the bliss of oblivion in short order.
“I was really hoping he’d run.” Hawk sidled up to Zeke and
tsked
. “Oh well, this will be fun too. Grieves Stockton, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the—”
Stockton’s unbalanced laugh kicked up the dirt near his face. “Alliances are a funny thing.”
“Hilarious.” She sneered.
“I scared my brother into cooperating. I wonder if I could scare you into it.” His stark blue gaze centered Zeke’s.
“He’s not a pussy.” Hawk sat on the man’s ankles and smacked cuffs around them. She looked up at Zeke. “Should I gag him too?”
“Not yet.” Stockton shook his head. “If I can’t scare you, maybe I can negotiate.”
Zeke bent at the waist, grabbed a handful of the president’s collar, and levered him close. “You can’t negotiate your way out of this. Just be glad she’s transporting you. If you were with me, they might find your body. A piece or two anyway. Your lungs maybe. Enough to declare you deceased.”
A smile quirked the man’s fat lips. “So, Lieutenant Slaughter, would you like to negotiate a truce for my niece or is she as expendable to you as she is to me?”
Before thought or consequence settled, Zeke’s fist found his Glock. He sealed the barrel against the bastard’s head.
“Where is Greer?” Hawk asked the question just over Zeke’s shoulder, but made no other move to stop him.
His finger longed to ease back the trigger, to let the arterial spray coat his face, to watch the destroyer of so many lives lose his own. Hawk’s calm question suspended him on that jagged edge.
“She’s right where you left her. The condition you find her in though…that depends on the outcome here.” Sweat dripped off Stockton’s brow. His voice wavered.
“You don’t wager with a wraith,” Hawk whispered. “If you want to live, spill it.”
Zeke’s finger slid to the base of the trigger guard.
“I wagered an alliance with an old friend of yours. His bereft father, actually. So how about that deal?”
“Filipov.” Zeke roared and emptied his clip in a halo above the man’s head.
“
I
venture
we all have battle scars. Some of us wear them on the outside, others only on the inside.”
“Yes, we do,” Greer agreed.
An electric current of rage ran on a closed circuit in the man’s light gaze, gaining amperage with each pass.
She took a step backward, but tried to distract from it. “Is Zeke okay?”
“Zeke Slaughter?”
Every receptor in Greer’s body pinged. “Yes.”
“He won’t be. Not when he finds the woman he loves trussed up and ready to explode like a firecracker on the Fourth of July.”
Xavier stepped forward.
Greer countered the move with a retreating step. Her heel landed unevenly on the wheel of the BMW. “Who are you?”
“You haven’t heard of me, but maybe you have heard of my son. Your precious Zeke killed him. Zeke and his sister, Khani.”
He lunged. His mangled hand grabbed her throat in a flash and clamped the breath from her esophagus.
Greer wheezed her response, but it was lost in the man’s punishing grip.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” His laugh echoed from far away.
She refused to struggle. Even old and disabled, the man outweighed her by 150 pounds or more. Her brain needed oxygen to function, but it needed to function to get oxygen.
Greer slipped her fingers into her front pocket.
“All right, I’ll let you have your say. You’re not the cunt I want to kill anyway.” His grip eased ever so slightly.
Though she tried to inhale calmly, her body wracked and hacked with abandon. It was all she could do to keep her hand inside her pocket. Xavier’s grip on her neck actually helped keep her balanced.
“We don’t have all day.” His gaze dropped to her breasts. “Actually, we have quite a few hours.”
Air wheezed into her lungs. She held it there and gathered her courage. “Your son deserved it.”
The second his hand clamped, Greer opened the small blade. She rammed it into Xavier’s exposed tricep and shoved with all her might.
One hand flew to his arm. His grip faltered.
Greer struck his wrist high and hard. His hold broke. She turned and used the side view mirror to propel herself.
Her gaze centered on the door. If she could just get to her gun…
Loose gravel slipped beneath her boots, pitching her forward.
A bulldozer rammed her from behind. Jagged pebbles and rock stabbed into her palms and knees. Unforgiving hands crawled up her bare skin. He flipped her with what seemed like barely controlled rage. Hot breath hit her face.
“I’m going to fuck you and make him watch.”
Greer knew he meant it. She fought the urge to flail and kick.
“You might like it.”
She jerked her free knee high, catching the protruding knife.
His scream lit the valley. A mangled fist arched high in the sky. His weight pinned her arms. She braced for the blow.
“
I
f I don't slow
down and your line gets tangled in the carabiner, I’ll drag your ass through the trees until we have to cut you loose. I’m not letting your reckless hide take us down,” the Blackhawk pilot explained through the HELO’s communication system.
“I’m not planning to use the clip.” Zeke yanked the hatch wide until it clicked into place.
“Are you planning to fall to your death?” The flight crewman nearest him, Eton, peered out to the tops of the dense forest.
“No. But I plan on killing someone shortly.”
“Hope you get the chance.” Eton double checked the clip on the ceiling of the helicopter.
“It’ll only take me two minutes more to land this bird,” the pilot said.
“I don’t have two minutes, and if I did, I don’t know what kind of traps this son of a bitch has set.”
Eton took the headphones Zeke offered him and followed him to the door. The wind from the propellers bent the tops of the pines and oaks under its hailing force.
“Good luck, man.”
Zeke needed all the luck he could get, and then some. He couldn’t seem to tap the breaks. He’d ignored Hawk’s requests to think it through, plan it out, or even wait until some of her agents could accompany him. Once again he hoped it wasn’t to his detriment…or Greer’s.
Both feet dangled in the breeze. His hands clenched the rope. Zeke waited for the calm to come, but his heart assaulted his sternum with unyielding beats. The cabin entered his field of vision. An ache clamped his chest and at the same time threatened to rip it wide open.
“Go,” Eton barked.
He’d already launched off the platform into nothingness. The man’s order faded into the whir of wind and the cacophony of his heartbeat.
Rope whizzed through Zeke’s hands, sheering off layers of callouses. He didn’t hold tighter. If anything he loosened his grip, descending like a bomb. The small house grew bigger and bigger, until Zeke thought he might run across the roof or at least crash through it. He held tight for a spit second, and then dropped. Free-fall ushered him to the ground. Without the cumbersome spreader and AK, he tucked into a ball and rolled to a stop twenty feet from the front door.
Zeke ran headlong for it, looking for trip wires and mines the best he could, aware he might be incinerated by a blast before he noticed the trigger.
Xavier wouldn’t take him out now. He’d want Khani first. The logic wasn’t foolproof, but it was all he had.
He barreled through the front door with his Glock drawn.
Wood splintered and skid across the floor. A tiny shard bumped into Greer’s big toe. Blood smeared the top of her feet and the ropes binding her ankles to the kitchen chair. It dotted her wide-spread porcelain legs. Taut knots laced her naked torso and barred her arms behind her back.
Dry, dirt-outlined tear tracks streaked her cheeks. But not a hint of moisture clouded her wide gaze as it bounced from him to Filipov senior and back again.
An all too familiar necklace graced the long column of Greer’s quivering neck. A rusty green grenade hung at the end by its pin and four fat fingers gripped the wide oval so completely it nearly disappeared in the scared flesh.
Filipov's son had worn one around his neck like a badge of courage. The thing had swung back and forth in front of Zeke’s nose while Grisha Junior exercised his futile rage on Zeke’s ribs. He remembered the crunch of the ice under the man’s boots. He remembered the numb shivers that wracked his body as the Alaskan chill seeped through his knees and took hold in his blood. He remembered the deafening explosion that rocked the cabin Grisha and his sister had been inside. He remembered the chaotic fear of thinking her dead.
Zeke held Greer’s gaze.
Something inside him broke away. It soothed his long held guilt. It shattered the last pieces of his reserve. It revealed a future he never knew he wanted.
Now that he’d seen it, he’d be dead before he’d let anyone take it away.
“I knew you would save her.” The rust in the old man’s voice matched the relic of a weapon in his heavy fist.
Since he’d walked inside, Zeke actually looked at the man who threatened his future. Chalk white lips matched the color of his thick hair. He’d never met the man, but his mug shots showed a ruddy complexion that now drained into puddles onto the oak floor. Blood coated the bottom left portion of his shirt and dripped in a steady beat onto his soaked khakis.
Despite his leak, a sinister sneer contorted the man’s lined face. “It was almost too easy to trap you. A little tracker in the skin and here we are.” His dazed blue eyes drifted to a bleeding hole in Greer’s forearm, and then to a pill-sized tracker on the ground beside her.
“I thought you might save Derrick too. I turned him while he worked at the warehouse.” Xavier shrugged. A grimace revealed the effort it cost him. “People say I’d never hurt someone I love. That’s a lie.” He hissed. “It’s about finding their price. Everyone has a price, even you, Slaughter.”
Xavier swayed, and then shuffled to the side.
Zeke’s cross-bow strung muscles tensed impossibly farther.
The man regained his footing. “Don’t worry. I have to hang on yet. You see, I don’t want to hurt Greer. I want you and your sister. I’m willing to make a trade.” His mostly nub hand caressed the side of Greer’s face, and then down over her collar bone.
“Stop.” Zeke warned.
“There’s one way to make me. I’ll trade your lover for your sister.”