Fuck! They should’ve left Jay in Montana. Insisted he stay behind. Snuck out in the dead of night. Chained him to a fucking chair. Glued his ass cheeks together and?—
“There he is,” Cody hollered, pointing to one of the ramshackle outbuildings they were passing by.
Head cranking halfway around his body and vision funneling to a pinprick, Grant caught sight of the man of the hour, emptying his pistol’s magazine into the closest group of soldiers bearing down on his location. One-handed. No aiming involved.
Hell, he wasn’t even looking at his targets.
Nope. Attention on the shredded blue tarp he wrestled with, he managed to uncover a couple of banged-up dirt bikes while single-handedly holding back the enemy.
And he wasn’t wearing his helmet.
No helmet. No comms.
Explained a lot.
Fucking asshole.
Naturally, Jay had a contingency plan. He always had a secret strategy he kept on the down low. A wild card he carried so close to his damn chest no one could predict what he’d do next. Like ditching his team and his tactical gear to draw enemy attention his way.
“We need to lay down cover fire!” Grant shouted, his pulse skyrocketing.
“Roger that.” Ryder yanked the tail end of the helicopter around, positioning them for a clearer line of sight.
“Oorah, bitches! Let’s do this.” With a quick jerk of his body weight, Cody swung the M240H into position, and with each controlled burst, dozens of rounds shredded through the advancing wave of super soldiers, driving them back like they’d just walked into a wall of lead.
Didn’t matter. Programmed to follow orders, they continued to swarm. But despite the guns aimed Jay’s way, nobody pulled the trigger. Volkov didn’t want him dead. Far from. He was the guy every single member of the Imperium Council had been searching for. The key to their power.
Kill him and kill the dream of a totalitarian regime under the rule of an iron-fisted dictator. Without Jay, there’d be no way to harness Dominion. No way to use it to their advantage. Or so they believed. Yeah, they wanted him alive and unharmed. His big brain intact and hooked up to their servers.
The same couldn’t be said for the rest of them, however, and the Black Hawk took some ground fire. The distinct ping of metal piercing metal, serving as a poignant reminder.
They weren’t down for the count—not yet.
But they weren’t out of danger either.
Instincts taking over, Grant returned fire, his gun’s recoil kicking through his shoulder with each round as he carefully controlled the trajectory of bullets he unleashed, keeping them away from Jay by maintaining a tight grip on his weapon.
Precision over panic. Focused fury over blind rage.
Every shot counted. Every second mattered.
“Come on. Come on,” Jamie muttered, his impassioned plea echoing everyone’s thoughts as they watched their brother from another mother toss his empty gun, swing a leg over the motorcycle’s seat, and pop the kill switch. “Start you fucking piece of shit!”
Time slowed as they held their collective breaths. Each of them hoping, praying, and in Grant’s case, making deals with the devil while Jay executed one rapid-fire heel stand after another.
One. Motherfucker.
Two. Motherfucker.
Three. Motherfucker.
On the fourth attempt to kick-start the bike, the KTM sputtered to life, blue smoke coughing out the rear end a second before Jay gunned the throttle and took off—studded tires aimed straight for a narrow path trampled through the snow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Black Hawk’s motors rumbled through Cody’s tight chest as the helicopter cut through the air like a beast of prey, the rhythmic chop of the blades mimicking a mechanical heartbeat with every rotation.
Fingers clenched around the handles of his rifle, he swept his gaze over the frozen tundra, searching for any possible threats hidden among the crags and the scrub. From this height, Big Diomede was nothing but a barren wasteland. A drab sheet of white and gray granite.
