Page 26 of Hazard

When everything went to hell, they normally called in QRF, their quick reaction force, which consisted of troops standing by at one of the major bases. In this case it was Cartagena Naval Base hundreds of miles away with ready and willing Marine Rangers. But with no way to reach them, they were high and dry, and completely on their own.

Hazard stopped firing as it registered that nothing in his field of fire was moving. He immediately whipped his weapon up and jumped off the bed of the truck, concerned only about his teammates. But they were mopping up, shooting controlled bursts from their weapons on the move, crushing the enemy shooters who had ambushed them and pinned them down.

“Ice,” Hazard said, his ears still ringing from the heavy machine gun’s retorts, seeing some squirters slip from the foliage he had used for cover. “Squirters at twelve o’clock.” They were retreating, running. Hazard immediately circled around to flank them as the team focused in that direction, taking out all of them down to the last man.

The ambush ended as quickly as it had started.

“Form up,” Iceman ordered, and they met on the field of battle among the dead cartel, with Breakneck bringing up the rear.

All the guys fell on him, slapping his back, his helmet, and shoving him between them as they fist-bumped and gave him his due.

“Focus up,” Iceman said before breaking direct and intense eye contact with Breakneck, nothing but pride in his gaze. “Good work out there, junior.” Their youngest teammate grinned even wider.

“How’s those gray hairs now, boss?” He just gave them all that icy stare.

Everyone chuckled, then they sobered. They had been lucky. They’d escaped with only varying degrees of fragmentation and no serious trauma.

No word from TOC made them all on edge. The only thing worse than old intel was no new intel. Their last update had been hours old, which meant they were lying low, or there was no longer anyone left to respond.

“We’re going to be moving fast,” Iceman said. “We’ll be approaching an unknown situation with no comms and no backup. Once we get there, we’ll reassess the situation.”

“About halfway there, we’re going to run into daylight,” Preacher said. His uncanny ability to mirror Iceman’s thoughts was downright Zen, but he always had Ice’s six. “We’ll be exposed, and we have no way of knowing where the enemy is or if they’re coming after us. Vigilance is the watchword.”

Then it was a sweaty forty minutes before they got back to TOC, Iceman leading the way. He never lost that leader mentality and always set their pace. Hazard’s heart sank when he slowed down and saw how the enemy had fucked them over twice.

The horror of reaching the mangled and demolished TOC registered on every one of their faces. Most of the team broke into a run with Hazard following, his heart aching like hell. Even with the realization that they were way too late, the urgency, the shred of hope was still there.

But Hazard stopped when he spied something in the dust. He bent to pick it up, and his heart stalled. It was a picture of Leigh.

“Ice,” Hazard rasped out, his voice catching, and their leader stopped and turned. Hazard extended the picture toward him, his voice all but backed up in a throat that was filled with so much ache, he was afraid he was going to lose it.

“Fuck!” Iceman said, pointing at the picture, his expression taut and controlled. “She was the target! All this to get at Leigh.” Hazard stared at him while fear and anger churned in his gut. “They knew they couldn’t get at her in the city. Too many problems, and our position is too fortified.” He stared at Hazard, his voice flat. “They used that bastard to lure us out here to?—”

“Ice,” Skull’s voice crackled through their earpieces. “Anna and Leigh are missing. Jack is dead, and Patch… You better come,” he continued professionally, his voice breaking slightly from the pain that was surging through all of them.

As they entered the TOC through the gaping hole in the wall, Hazard met Skull’s eyes, filled with the intensity of his pain. It mirrored exactly what every one of them was feeling. They all stood there absorbing the shock. Jack had been with them for years, making sure their equipment was loaded, unloaded, and nothing was ever left out or left behind. He was especially sensitive to Bones’s needs—such a dog lover—and assisted Skull with vigor in making sure the dog’s equipment and food were top-notch. He was vigilant, tough, smart as hell, and their veritable lifeline to command.

It was difficult to see the man who had saved their lives countless times taken down while their team had been just miles away. Boomer turned away, a choking sound behind his broad-shouldered back that shook. Jack had ridden Boomer the hardest because he was such a pain in the ass. But they had a solid friendship and working relationship. Preacher sidled up to him and squeezed his shoulder, showing his support from not only their second in command, but for the whole team.

There was no darker feeling than to have failed the people who deserved their protection. That was only one layer of their pain.

Patch lay on his back, his breathing labored, his lips tinged blue. Kodiak had cut away his clothes, started an IV, and was desperately trying to save him, but Hazard’s hopes sank. His chest was full of bullet holes and covered in blood. He could barely draw breath.

Iceman went down to his knees, and Patch reached out and caught his vest. “You get them,” he ordered, clenching his teeth, and staring into Iceman’s eyes with more steel than expected from a man who was mortally wounded and dying. “You don’t stop. You don’t fail, Chris. Hoo-yah,” he said, as he let go, his grip releasing, his eyes rolling back, a leader and warrior until the end.

Kodiak was still moving, still doing his job, but his efforts were now futile. Iceman grabbed Kodiak’s shoulder, and his face said it all when he looked at Iceman. The helplessness there was something Kodiak could normally handle. He wanted to find something in his bag of medical tricks to save their new leader, but there was nothing he or anyone could do.

They stood there for a minute in the carnage of the attack on their TOC, numb, angry, and anguished.

“Goddammit,” Ice cursed, his body as taut as a bowstring. The muscles in his jaw were twitching, his anger making his eyes blaze blue. Then he rose and looked at Hazard. “See if you can get us a line to either command or QRF.” He turned to GQ. “Handle the bodies and make sure they’re covered.” The bonds that formed in battle were made of steel, and the fact that they were all breathing was because of a twenty-five-year-old badass sniper and warrior who had battled on his own to come back and cover their sixes. That’s what these people had done. Stood up for what was right and given the ultimate sacrifice.

Suddenly, feeling shaky inside, Hazard turned away from the dead bodies and slipped out of the broken building, following the line of disturbed dirt. His gut froze when he saw the tracks, the place where there had been a struggle—that girl wouldn’t have gone down without a fight—and apparently, she had fought like a wildcat.

He couldn’t help but smile through the agony. He brought up the picture of her in the courtroom, arguing her case, his hand holding the photo trembling. Leigh would never give in. The fear for her curled around him with an airtight certainty, especially after she discovered that all this mess was solely to get to her. He dropped his head into his hand, his chest filling up with more emotions than he could define.

Oh, geezus, Anna…Leigh.

A hand dropped onto his shoulder, and he turned to find Skull. “We’re going to find them, Arch, and when we do, whoever took them will be sorry they ever heard our names.”

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