“They’re dead men walking.”
She slammed the phone down. “We’re going to find them,” she said, her voice a low vow already heading for the airfield. “And by God, when we do, those two are going to pay dearly.”
“No-ooo—”
The sound echoed through the cavernous cannery, a primal scream of outrage and torment. With a detached clarity, he realized it was himself. Through a red haze of fury, Carver was the perfect, unmoving target, already in his scope. He had him dead to rights, center mass, just waiting for a high-velocity bullet. The weight of Iceman’s deadly situation crashed down on him in a whole new compartment of cold, hard rage. Memories flooded him, the way Iceman had nurtured him, treated him like a…son, protected him, led him. All the layers and layers of brotherhood, and the worst feeling of all. How his team would react to his failure. All of it.
Anguish and the surge of numbing fear gnawed at him, but he dropped into true, empty sniper mode. Ice’s life depended on it. He couldn’t think about him now, or he’d soon be dead. Ice was bleeding out on the floor fifty feet below.
He pulled the trigger. While Carver stared up at his helplessness with an infuriating smug look, the noise of the rifle jamming was the loudest thing Breakneck had ever heard. A dead, final sound. Goddammit.
He took a breath, breathing carefully. He tried the radio one more time, his thumb mashing the button, his eyes locked on Carver below.
“TOC, this is Breakneck, do you copy?”
A laugh echoed through the cavernous space, a sound of pure, condescending victory. Carver looked up at him, held up a small, black device in his hand. A jammer. That’s why they couldn’t get through. With a sick, sinking feeling, Breakneck realized they had planned this to the last detail.
Out of options, he rose but saw that Jones was already more than halfway to him. Jones was thinking he was a sitting duck, just waiting for the hunter to end the fight.
Fuck those fuckers. He was never out of the fight.
Jones’s voice was subdued. “Sorry about this, kid. I’ll make it fast. You won’t have to see your leader die.”
Breakneck rose from his position, grabbing for his sidearm. He racked the slide, but it wouldn’t budge. Jammed. Seized. Sabotaged.
He saw Jones then, already more than halfway up the metal staircase, moving with a confident, predatory lope. his voice drifted up, taunting, amplified by the steel structure. “That’s okay, kid. I’ll make it fast. You won’t have to see your leader die.”
Breakneck took several fortifying, slowing breaths, his eyes darting around the cab. Debris was everywhere, old coffee cups, broken tools, shattered glass. But something rusted and sharp caught his attention. A small, grease-stained wooden box on the floor, spilled open. Inside were heavy, iron cog wheels, their teeth sharp and wicked. He reached down, his fingers closing around three of them, their weight dense and cold in his palm. He kept his pistol at his side, a prop for a play he was about to write.
Jones reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the cab, his sidearm held loosely at his side, a gloating smile on his face. “Don’t make it worse?—”
That was all the room Breakneck needed. He exploded into movement. He brought up his hand and released one of the cogs. It sliced through the air with a soft whisper of deadly sound before hitting Jones’s weapon. The sound of metal on metal clanged in the silence, the firearm dislodging and flying from his hands, clattering with satisfaction as it came to rest on the catwalk below, way out of Jones’s reach.
The man looked at him for a surprised, almost respectful second, his eyes narrowing. “Well, aren’t you full of fucking surprises, kid.”
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.
