Chapter 8 - The Hostage in the Shadows
The firefight erupted the moment the first team breached the container line.
*Crack-crack-crack-thump!*
Heavy rifle rounds tore through the sheet metal of the shipping containers, sending orange sparks raining down into the oily puddles.
Rafe Calder moved like an absolute juggernaut.
Despite the heavy wraps binding his chest, despite the agonizing pain he had to be experiencing with every breath, he led the center assault column with terrifying efficiency. He fired from behind the cover of a rusted forklift, dropping two shooters on the catwalk above with two single, rhythmic shots.
I moved right behind him, carrying my trauma kit and a tactical sidearm Malcolm had forced into my hand.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the concrete pier.
A flash-bang grenade detonated twenty feet to our left, filling the air with blinding white light and a concussive roar that shattered my equilibrium.
I stumbled, my ears ringing with high-pitched feedback, hitting the wet concrete on my knees.
Through the white smoke, two men in black wet-weather gear lunged forward.
One of them kicked my trauma bag away, while the second grabbed the collar of my Kevlar vest, hauling me backward toward an open container.
"Got the girl!" someone screamed through a radio. "Pull back to the barge!"
I didn't scream. I didn't close my eyes.
The four years in Afghanistan took over.
I reached down to my boot, pulled the eight-inch tactical trauma shears from their sheath, and drove the heavy steel blades directly into the meat of the man’s thigh.
He shrieked, dropping me onto the concrete as bright arterial blood sprayed across the metal floor of the container.
The second man raised his shotgun toward my chest.
Before he could pull the trigger, the entire container wall seemed to implode.
Rafe Calder hit the man like a three-hundred-pound freight train.
He didn't use his gun. He seized the shooter by the throat with his bare left hand, drove him backward into the corrugated steel wall with bone-shattering force, and slammed him down onto the concrete.
The man didn't move again.
Rafe turned toward me, his chest heaving, blood soaking through the tactical vest over his ribs.
His slate eyes were wide with a murderous, feral rage that turned my blood cold.
"Did they touch you?" he roared over the gunfire.
"I’m fine!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet, grabbing my trauma kit. "I took his femoral artery! He’s out of the fight!"
Rafe grabbed my face with both hands, his large palms rough against my wet skin, pulling me in until our foreheads slammed together.
"You stay behind me," he growled, his voice vibrating with raw terror. "Do you hear me, Nora? You stay behind me!"
"I’m with you, Rafe! Always!"
Across the pier, a flare went up, bathing the docks in a ghastly red glow.
"Rafe!" June’s voice echoed through the comms. "Vincent is running for the fuel barge! He has the detonator for the tank farm!"
Rafe let go of my face, his 1911 already raised.
May you like
"Time to end this," he said.
---
