His brain unable to comprehend, his body functions held in complete suspension, and his finger slack on the useless trigger of his weapon, Grant watched in stunned disbelief as Jay disappeared into the steely depths of the water below.
There was no splash to see from this height. No sound above the howl of the wind. Just the vast expanse of the Bering Sea, heaving to and fro.
An ever-moving icy grave.
“Nooo…don’t leave me!” Rebecca’s tortured wail broke through his protective barriers, her gut-wrenching cry ripping him to shreds. A soul-rending lament from a heartbroken lover. “Oh God! Please…” she cried between breathless sobs. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
Already too close to the edge of losing it for good, Grant couldn’t lift his head to look at her tear-streaked face. Fucking hell. She was a stranger to him. Someone he’d never met before.
Didn’t matter. Not in the least.
He couldn’t bear witness to another woman’s suffering at the loss of a loved one. Couldn’t risk seeing the wild look in her eyes without having a way to make this shit better. He’d do anything—sacrifice anything—to give her Jay back.
No. Hell no. He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he kept his gaze on the white-capped water below, hoping to see Jay surface, praying to find some sign his friend—his brother—had survived the impossible. Nothing caught his eye. No flailing. No hailing. No body floating between the swells.
The ocean churned, indifferent to their shock and grief as the Black Hawk hovered a short distance from the cliff, a thundering witness to the madness of men.
Then movement in his peripheral vision demanded his attention, and reluctantly, he swung his head up in time to see Tak step toward the edge of the cliff, sniper rifle slung over his back, pistol in his hand.
Across the distance, their eyes locked for the briefest of moments, and he could swear the motherfucker grinned. Grinned—at him—a millisecond before the second dirt bike crested the top of the plateau, and he swung his gaze over his shoulder to take in the latecomer.
“I see him!” Ryder’s voice crackled over the comms, a calm beacon cutting through the endless background chatter of the JTF2. “I’ve got a lock on target. T-Two, make your way to my coordinates. The rest of you, hang on.”
Without hesitation, she plunged the aircraft into a controlled dive, leaving Tak and Grant’s stomach behind as the nose of the helicopter aimed for the water in a fast, precise maneuver.
Waves crashed violently beneath them, but she held the eleven-ton machine steady, skillfully guiding the Black Hawk closer to the unconscious figure bobbing in the surf below. In seconds, she had them hovering fifteen feet above the surface, rotors kicking up mist as Jay’s water-activated strobe light blinked an SOS bright enough for everyone to see.
Time slowed. The chaos inside the cabin grew. And Grant saw nothing.
Heard nothing.
Registered nothing.
On autopilot, he tossed his gun, released his retention belt, lost his helmet, tore off his extra magazine pack, and dropped himself out the open door before Cody could stop him. A plethora of shouted curses followed his descent, and for a heartbeat, he was weightless, the sound of everyone and everything receding as the ocean rushed up to meet him.
Then—impact.
Arms and ankles crossed, he hit the water like a sledgehammer, the frigid cold enveloping him in a deadly embrace, numbing his skin and paralyzing his muscles. In sensory overload, a collision of adrenaline, instinct, and years of experience kicked in, and breath turning to shards of glass in his lungs, he swam for the surface.
With each desperate stroke, his fingers cramped a little more, every nerve ending he possessed prickling with a sharp, biting pain as the cold seeped down to his core. All around him, the sea pushed and pulled. Turbulent. Relentless. Powerful.
Jesus, fuck! His boots had turned into cement blocks. His double-plated vest? A thousand-pound anchor strapped to his torso, threatening to keep him under, trapped in the invisible current dragging him deeper.
He’d been trained in cold water rescue. Had spent too many hours in the open ocean with his JTF2 crew. Had fought the sea Gods and won. But this black hole of oblivion? Hell on earth. Fire and ice. Death and destruction.
Arms, legs, and lungs burning, he persevered. Broke the surface. Gulped in salt-laced air. A wave crested. Landed on his head. Tried to end his rescue attempt. Fuck. That. Shit. He surfaced again and scanned the roiling cauldron of fury, searching for Jay amidst the angry waves.
Needle meet fucking haystack as Cody liked to say.
He looked up, and squinting through the frothing rotor wash, he caught sight of Zander’s waving arm. Direction given, he Michael Phelpsed his way over to the location indicated, every hard-fought stroke a test of endurance as his heart pounded too hard against his ribs.
Both their survival now resting on sheer grit and determination, he fought the dark thoughts circling his gray matter. What if he was too late? What if Jay had already succumbed to injury? Drowning? Hypothermia?
What if his friend was already dead? The Bering Sea offering a corpse in replacement.
One body to bury in exchange for another?
No. He shook his head. He couldn’t go down that road. If he did, there’d be no U-turns. No coming back. Not from this.
