Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (24 page)

“W
hat was that?”
Erin squeaked. She jumped as the loud report caught them both off-guard.

“Nothing good,”
Jack whispered. “I can tell you that for sure. Sounded like a hell of a blast.
Mossberg shotgun if I had to guess. About the only thing that can kill a Kodiak
Bear shifter, too. Even our shifter healing can’t fix that damage.” Jack’s face
darkened with concern.

“We need Spider.
And more guns would be comforting, too,” Erin suggested. She was trying to
maintain a brave face. She moved closer to Jack as if she hoped to draw
strength from him.

Jack cocked his
head to one side. Bear shifter hearing wasn’t necessary. Erin heard it too.
Footsteps coming toward them. From behind. They were being surrounded.

Thumbing the
safety off, Erin raised the barrel of her machine pistol, ready to take out
whoever was trying to get the drop on them.

The dense foliage
began to part.

Erin moved her
finger from the trigger guard to the trigger, ready to fire.

“Did you hear
that?” Spider whispered anxiously as he stepped through into the clearing,
parting the large tree branches like they were nothing. “I think they got
Jarrad.”

Erin looked at
Spiders ashen face in the soft glow of the moonlight. He was plainly concerned
for his friend and fellow shifter.

“Are you alright?”
She reached out and placed her hand over his.

Spider took her
hand and gave her a comforting squeeze. “I’m fine. But where’s my gun?”

“Take this.” She
handed hers to Spider after flipping the safety back on. “Jarrad took yours.
Doesn’t sound like he even got a shot off.”

“We need to sort
these bastards out now. I’ve had about enough of them.” Determination laced
Spider’s words. His face became a series of hard planes, washing away the Welsh
dimples that had so softened Erin to him. He was all soldier now and he meant
business.

“Is there any
chance Jarrad could still be . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud.

Spider shook his
head morosely. Shotgun blasts never had a happy ending, not even for the
biggest and strongest of bear shifters.

But, Elle was
still one of their own. Part of their family. And she carried Jarrad’s cubs. It
was time to go to work. They owed her that. They owed Jarrad, too.

“I’ve got an
idea.” Spider’s eyes glinted like diamonds. Even in the faint light of the
forest they sparkled with cunning, piercing through the veil of sorrow from the
loss of his dear friend.

He handed his
weapon to Erin. “Here, take this. You’re going to need it for what I’ve got in
mind.”

“Oh, shit,” Jack
mumbled under his breath, “this can’t be good.”

T
he Russian built
Mi-28 was never designed to win a beauty contest. But what the purposeful and
heavily armed helicopter lacked in beauty and elegance, it more than made up
for with absolute, uncompromising brute strength. And it was one hell of a
brute, bristling with cannons and a variety of armed missile launchers it sat
on the disused logging camp helipad like a giant insect. A gigantic, angry
insect.

Jack recognized
the dormant beast as the same type of helicopter, codenamed ‘Havoc’ by NATO,
that had saved his life during a covert mission before he was medically
discharged from the army. Another lifetime ago, before he came to the mountain.
Somehow, it looked far more menacing on the ground. Or maybe because it was in
the enemy’s hands.

“And you can fly that monstrosity?” Erin
asked.

Spider’s eyes lit up in sheer admiration.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.

“Until she starts firing missiles at you or
trying to turn you into a bloody mess with those cannons,” Jack grumbled.

“Maybe I see beauty where you see something
else,” Spider shot back quickly. Too quickly as he shot a furtive, sideways
glance to Erin.

Laying alongside him, Erin felt his eyes
upon her. She blushed, hoping neither of the men noticed.

He’s not talking about the damn helicopter
anymore, is he?

“Let’s get cracking. That beast isn’t going
to fly itself,” Spider snapped, more to himself than at the others. He needed
to refocus on their mission.

Jack and Erin readied their weapons to
cover Spider as he made a dash for the mighty gunship. Spider was counting on
them, or as Erin preferred to think of it, on
her
.

Before she could change her mind and
ignoring Jack, for the moment, Erin hurriedly leaned into Spider and kissed him
on the cheek.

“Good luck,” she whispered, her voice wavering
between pride in his mission to save his friend’s wife and fear that he might
fail.

Spider’s throat constricted as he looked
into Erin’s crystal blue eyes. He couldn’t find the words, not that he could
have said them, anyway. He nodded in silent acknowledgment and sprinted down
the slope toward the helipad.

“What have you done to him?” Jack taunted.
“He used to be one of the hardest men I’ve known. Around you, he’s like a pussy
cat.”

“I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking
about.” She felt the heat of her blush prickle around her collar.

A smile started to form on Jack’s lips, but
before he could make a smart comment, Erin’s unyielding glare made him think
better of it. Sometimes the smartest thing to say is . . . nothing. He’d
learned that lesson. More than once.

T
he unmistakable clatter of Kalashnikov
assault rifles and the bright muzzle flashes from the tree line rudely
interrupted their standoff. Trails of dust marked the impact of bullets at
Spider’s heels as he zig zagged across the concrete landing pad.

Trying to get a bead on the shooters, Erin
and Jack fired short, controlled bursts toward the shooters. The entire field
of fire was soon hazy with gun smoke, making it equally difficult for both
sides to hit their targets.

Just as quickly, though, the smoke cleared
as the massive rotors of the Mi-28 began to spin through the air, accompanied
by the whine of the jet turbines that powered them. Spider had made it.

“We’d better get out of here before she’s
fully spun up.” Jack grabbed Erin by the arm, directing her to further up the
slope.

“Don’t we need to cover Spider?” By her
expression, she was clearly concerned for his safety.

“Trust me,
he’s
not the one who
needs looking after right now,” he shouted as they ran full speed, away from
the increasing pitch of the engines.

Within seconds, the giant insect was aloft
and rotating 360 degrees on its axis. Panicked bursts of gunfire bounced
harmlessly off the choppers armor plate. Then, suddenly, the loud clatter of
the Kalashnikovs was drowned by the deafening
boomf-boomf-boomf
of the
turret mounted 30mm canon in the Mi-28. Spider had unleashed the sting of his
new toy. His angry insect had spat venom.

Thirty seconds later, although it felt much
longer to the Armenian gangsters, swathes of forest were laid flat. Not a
living creature stirred. The empty cannon whirred back and forth on its mount,
eager to be fed more ammunition. The choking odor of ammonia from the vast
number of 30mm rounds it had spewed out hung in the air like a deadly pall.

Erin stared wide eyed and silent at the
wake destruction unleashed by just one of the helicopters armaments. Jack was
right. Spider wasn’t the one who needed protection.

Erin was speechless. But her lips silently
formed the words.

“Fuck me.”

T
he blazing lights
almost blinded Jarrad when they removed his hood. Having awesome night vision
as a bear shifter was all well and good, until someone pointed a cluster of
high intensity lights in your face.

He blinked away
the glare and shook his head to clear a foggy sensation. Shotgun. Searing pain.
Darkness. How was he still alive?

At least they
wanted him alive. That had to be a good thing, right?

Then he remembered
the high tech, self-contained taser shell hitting him in the chest. Just
because he was a bear shifter didn’t mean he couldn’t feel pain. Right now, he
was feeling a hell of a lot of pain. The long, barbed spikes were still deeply
embedded in his chest. Only the small, winged canister remained visible.

It hurt like hell,
but nowhere near as much as the surge of electricity that the shotgun fired
XREP self-contained taser pulsed into his convulsing body upon impact. It had
dropped the muscular, fit ex-soldier like a puppet with its strings cut. He
recalled convulsing and writhing in agony on the floor before a rifle butt to
the head rendered him unconscious.

Finally, his
vision started to adapt to the harsh lighting. Crystal white LED running
lights, connected to a 12 volt battery were the cause of the insane brightness
in the room. And then he noticed Elle, strapped down to an old wooden
workbench, like a macabre carpentry project.

“Give him one more
shot, before he tries make change,” a commanding voice instructed, clearly
directing someone else in the room.

Shot of what?

The sharp accent
marked the man giving the orders as East European. Then his memory, disjointed
by the electrical impulse of the taser and whatever they were drugging him with
started to piece together. The cartel. They had captured Elle because he wasn’t
there to protect her and him because he had to be a hero and couldn’t wait for
the rest of the team.

Stupid
.

“Another dose of
Carfentanil could kill. He’s had enough already. Should keep him in control.”
Another voice with the same accent came from behind Jarrad, so he couldn’t see
him, but he sounded concerned. So was Jarrad.

Jarrad had worked
in bear country long enough to know that Carfentanil citrate was a powerful
opiate based sedative used to sedate large, powerful animals, such as bears and
elephants. Too high a dosage and the outcome would be fatal. But why were they
using it on him?

The man giving the
orders entered Jarrad’s peripheral vision. He looked vaguely familiar, but he
couldn’t work out why. The man hooked his meaty hand under Jarrad’s chin and
lifted his head up to the light. Jarrad hunched and closed his eyes to the
blinding light.

“Does this one
look sedated to you? Give more. Give more . . .” He waved to hurry the other
man along, plainly terrified that Jarrad might shift before their very eyes and
tear them apart.

But there was no
chance of that. The drug had rendered the bear within Jarrad dormant, as if it
was hibernating. He was now totally on his own and Elle was counting on him. He
wouldn’t let her down again.

As the oversized
steel needle painfully penetrated deep into his shoulder muscle, the last
thought through Jarrad’s mind before the drug dulled his human senses as well
was . . .
how did they know?

Somehow, the
cartel had found out that bear shifters inhabited the mountain. They hadn’t
come to kill them. They’d come to capture them.

Elle could hear
what was going on, despite the cloth sack over her head. She pieced together
the puzzle at the same time as Jarrad and realized that she was no longer of
any value to her captors. She had served her purpose. It felt as though a heavy
weight was crushing her chest, choking her breath as she thought of losing her
cubs and Jarrad. Forever.

But the pain was
not for her alone. She felt the tears on her cheeks as she thought of Jarrad’s
pain at losing them all while he remained in captivity.

Then her pain was
cut short by the deafening roar of a gunshot.

W
ith air support
from Spider and his new toy, Erin felt ready for anything. Finally she was
playing the role of the covert secret agent she’d always dreamed of. Fighting
evil and saving the world. Big Bear Mountain was a part of the world, right?

“We only get one
shot at this,” Jack warned, the curved stock of his H&K nestled in his
shoulder, ready to fire.

“I’ve got it,”
Erin snapped back.

“No need to get
the cranky pants on. I’m a professional. I do this for real. You’re a . . .”

“A what?” she
challenged.

“Reporter?” he
ventured weakly.

“Nosy Parker”

“What?” He quirked
a brow.

“I’m a nosey
reporter. My last name’s Parker, so at work they call me ‘Nosy Parker’ when
they think I can’t hear them.”

“Well, right now,
you’re my backup. Spider can keep our flanks covered, but I need you to help me
sweep the room when I go in.”

“I still think me
not having a gun is a bad idea.”

Jack let out a
patient sigh. This was about the tenth time she’d mentioned that. The girl had
some serious firearm issues.

“All you have to
do is be an extra pair of eyes and call ‘eleven o’clock’ or ‘nine o’clock’ or
wherever the hell I have to shoot. I’ll sweep the right side of the room, you
call out the targets on the left. Easy, right?”

Her lips pouted
like a petulant child but she nodded in reluctant agreement.

E
verything happened
at the same time, but also like it was in playing in slow motion.

Jack gently tested
the door handle.

Unlocked.

They were getting
cocky. Too reliant on their guards to keep them safe. He doubted they’d had
military training and if they had, it was second rate. At least he had that
advantage in his side, even if he was outmanned and outgunned.

Quietly, he
levered the handle and gently shouldered the door open, both hands holding his
weapon in firing position.

Erin saw him. He
was standing next to the head of a woman strapped to a bench, her head covered
in a black sack. She was about to call ‘ten o’clock’ when the man drew his
pistol faster than she thought possible and fired.

Jack had drawn a
bead on a rail thin, dough faced man with a syringe in his hand. The man
dropped the syringe in his haste to raise his hands in the air. Pointing a
H&K machine pistol at someone will do that.

Movement caught
his attention on the other side of the room.

Just as Erin
started to call out to him, Jack turned his head and started to bring his
weapon to bear on the hostile target.

That’s when he saw
Elle. Between him and the shooter. He didn’t have a clean shot.

Elle! The cubs!

He had to trust
his instincts. He fired. Two rounds in quick succession hit the gunman in the
shoulder, enough to throw his aim high. High enough to miss Jack and Erin and
that’s all that mattered. He hit the floor, trailing blood down the wall
against which he’d been thrown from the impact, his shoulder a bloody ruin.

In the distance,
they heard a few sporadic bursts from the Mi-28’s cannon. The sound of the
bursts was moving away. Chasing the remaining cartel goons off the mountain.
Their mountain.

Dough face had
recovered his wits enough to make a dive for Jarrad’s abandoned weapon in the
corner of the room.

Before Jack could
bring his weapon around, Erin leaped toward Jarrad’s gun, sliding the last few
feet along the floor like she was stealing home plate. She snatched the weapon
out of reach of the runty little Russian, Armenian or whatever the hell he was
and poked the barrel right in his face.

“Go ahead, make my
day,” she snarled through bared teeth.

She looked over to
Jack. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve
so
wanted a chance to
say that, pretty much my entire life.”

Jack wasn’t about
to argue with a woman, especially a woman holding a gun.