Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting New York (Kindle Worlds Novella) (10 page)

M
iguel ran
. He didn’t look back and he didn’t slow down. If his hunch was right, he had about three minutes before the cops started swarming the lower levels. He didn’t care about the big bombs. Those were set with basic timers and fail-safes that he knew the SEAL could probably disarm in his sleep.

The only thing he cared about—the only goal he had right now—was to get to the rigged one before someone else got there first. If that happened, that explosion itself wouldn’t be strong enough to cause structural damage, but it would kill whoever was within a ten-yard radius.

It wasn’t set with a timer but instead had a mechanism that would trigger when it was moved or jostled. That was why it had to be him—anybody who disturbed it would die for sure.

Just the thought turned his bowels to ice and Miguel dug deeper and ran faster than he’d ever run in his life.

* * *

D
eep
in the underbelly of the hotel, Faulkner and Cheyenne ran as one. They didn’t waste breath on words, just clung tight to each other’s hand as they raced to stop the unthinkable before it happened.

Terryn and the rest of their group had broken away from them as soon as they’d entered the lobby. They would lead Brice and others to where Miguel said he’d hidden the other bombs.

The kid hadn’t said where the rigged one was set up, but Faulkner had an idea. He’d waded into situations like this too many times to count, in circumstances more dire than this. Masterminds who ran militias and/or entire countries had set up most of those incidences. Dude got that the kid was scared and believed his detonator was un-breachable, but he’d be damned if he couldn’t dismantle a rig fixed by a seventeen-year-old novice.

Down one dusty corridor to the left, then a quick pivot and they barreled down the one on the right. Left. Right. The lighting grew dimmer and the air danker the further they went.

Dude was pretty sure poor Shy was going to have a few broken bones in her hand. He’d also come close to yanking her arm out of socket a couple times when he’d changed directions on her. Since she refused to stay away, he was keeping her glued to his side where he could assure her safety for himself.

He couldn’t say he was positive where they were headed, but his years in this business gave him a better than average guess, so he was going to follow his gut, then work outward until they found what they were after.

They rounded another corner, slammed through a heavy steel door and found themselves in a dank, unfinished area with exposed beams and electrical wiring everywhere.

Dude stopped and pulled Shy close as they both panted and looked around. There were three doors leading out of this room. One had an exit sign above it, the other two were unmarked. They had a fifty-fifty chance of heading in the right direction.

Faulkner cursed under his breath and felt like laughing when his childhood drifted through his mind with the singsong “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” skipping along his jumbled thoughts.

“Oh God, honey.” Shy’s grip tightened and she pointed toward a shadowed corner. “Look.”

“Don’t.” Miguel sobbed, his arms full of what looked like a pretty straightforward homemade boomer. “Don’t come any c-c-closer!”

Tears and snot smeared his flushed face and Dude saw what Shy had seen all along—just a scared, lost kid. When he sniffled and awkwardly wiped his cheek on one bicep, Dude felt his heart twist with compassion.

“Just hold on, son,” he said, lifting his hands to show one was empty and the other held Shy. The boy had nothing to fear from them. “Let me help.”

“No.” Frantic head shakes and more sobbing. “No. You can’t. Didn’t she tell you?” His swollen, tear-wrecked eyes turned toward Cheyenne for one trembling moment, then back to his with renewed desperation. “You need to get her out of here. She knows! It’s gonna blow up. This one can’t be stopped. I gotta get it outta here before people get hurt.”

“That’s not gonna happen, kid,” he told him plainly. “No way in hell you’re getting out of this room with that thing. Now, lay it down and step away. If it’s gonna blow no matter what, we can evacuate and set it off without anybody getting hurt.”

“I can’t!” Miguel yelled. His voice cracked and his body quivered with the force of his conviction to right his wrongs. “Don’t you listen? Don’t you get it? I have to do this! It’s the only way.” Hiccupping sobs shook his armful in a way that made sweat prickle on the back of Faulkner’s neck.

“Enough!” Faulkner shouted. Miguel and Shy both jolted at the loud and unexpected burst. “That’s not a toy you’re cradling, boy. That’s a fucking bomb! Now put it down, and step the hell away so I can do my fucking job.”

It almost worked. For a second, his tone got through and the kid nodded his assent and bent forward as though he were about to lay his burden on the floor.

Then the unthinkable happened. Dude heard the slightly metallic snick as his bundle shifted.

“Freeze!” he shouted, but he needn’t have, Miguel heard it too.

As long as Dude lived, he knew he’d never forget the look in those huge dark eyes when they met his.

He didn’t have time for diplomacy and wasted none on finesse. With all his strength, he shoved Shy as hard as he could in the opposite direction and raced for the kid.

Miguel stood trembling and braced for the end, but Dude wasn’t gonna let him go without a fight. With one hand, he grabbed the bomb. The other, he clamped on to the boy’s collar and yanked the two apart, flinging the bomb toward the door marked exit.

White. Hot. Brilliantly bright and brutally loud, the bomb exploded with the roar of a dragon. Even as he felt the full body impact from the blast peppered with shrapnel, he wrapped his larger frame around Miguel’s as they crashed to the floor in a shower of fire and smoke.

P
ain would come
, he knew, but for now there was only chaos. Silence was a deafening roar in his ears. The absence of sound thrummed though his head like a vacuum and his vision had gone psychedelic from the flash. Every movement had tracers and even the things that were stationary looked as though they pulsed and swayed.

He had to move. Shy. He had to get to Shy and make sure she was all right. The disorientation was familiar, a partner he’d waltzed with before.

Years of military training moved him now. Got his arms to release their hold on the boy and allowed him to push himself to his hands and knees over the prone body beneath him. Dude’s first thought, his only thought, was Shy. He’d do what he could for Miguel once he knew she was safe.

Clouds of smoke and debris still floated in the room and the orange glare from the smoldering rubble cast the light with an eerie glow, only worsened by his still-ruined vision.

It took all his strength to push back to a kneeling position, but he made it. Just as he was trying to convince his body to get to its feet, Cheyenne stumbled to him and collapsed at his side.

“Thank God.” Relief poured renewed vigor into his body and he wrapped her in his arms and clung. Dude felt her sobbing on his chest, though he still couldn’t hear and pulled her in tighter. “Thank God, you’re safe.”

C
heyenne couldn’t hear
above the ringing in her ears. She supposed she should be grateful for the shrill sound, though a few moments ago, there hadn’t even been ringing, only the strangely buzzing silence that reminded her of being underwater. Relief and pain mixed in a head-spinning brew of giddy confusion and her thoughts jumbled like the flecks in a snow globe as she held on to Faulkner and cried.

She felt the rumble in his chest that told her he was talking, although she still couldn’t hear him. His big, scarred hands rubbed a soothing circle along her spine before he gripped her shoulders and pushed her back from his chest.

As soon as she was at arm’s length, he started the pat down. Shy understood completely—she also had a need to ascertain for herself that he was all in one piece and free of injury, so she returned the favor. When one of her hands landed on his side just over his ribs, a jolt of panic lanced though her heart. Wet, sticky and terrifying because there was a chunk of metal sticking out of him. He flinched and stilled when she landed on it and the two of them locked eyes for a moment before they both looked down.

His maroon shirt was black with blood and stuck to his side. The black turned crimson when it ran to his jeans and Shy was alarmed at how far down the streaks already were. Gingerly, she lifted the hem of his shirt and peeled it away from his flesh as gently as possible. Her gasp and cry fell on still-deaf ears but he showed he knew her worry anyway for he brushed a calming hand over the crown of her head that seemed to say it was going to be all right.

Looking at his ruined side, a thumb-sized chunk of pipe stuck in his ribs, Cheyenne felt her stomach threaten to revolt. The wound seeped a steady flow of red and she didn’t have enough medical knowledge to know how much was too much, but it horrified her. Dude grimaced and grabbed the piece between two fingers. It came free with little effort and a new rush of blood. Gruesome as it was, Shy was relieved to see it wasn’t as bad as she’d first believed.

There were other wounds, as well. Gashes that ranged in size from superficial scratches and scrapes to gouges as long as her forearm. Scrambling around to check for further damage, she saw more on his back and shoulder on that side as well as several places that had already started to bruise.

The ends of his hair were the ashy brittle brown of dead leaves and there was an angry red flush to his skin from where the blast of fire singed him, but she guessed he was in pretty good shape for having just gone toe to toe with a bomb.

Cheyenne worked her way back to his front, looking for damage she might have missed, when his voice cut through and she heard him speak. “Shy. Hold still and let me check you again.”

“I’m okay,” she said, shaking her head and running her hands along his blood-soaked thigh. Thankfully, it seemed as if there was no other damage aside from the side of his torso that had taken the brunt of the blast.

He wasn’t to be put off though, and she stopped her fussing. All it took was for her to see him flinch when she tried to keep going. She froze, and then it was his turn to examine her.

She was unhurt. There was a sting in her palms and her knees from where she’d fallen. Or, more accurately, where he’d thrown her. Cheyenne had already been leaping away, so with the added force of his heave, she’d almost made it completely across the room before the explosion. Shy had curled into the fetal position as tight as she possibly could and covered her head.

What had happened next had been nothing but a blur of sound and heat.

She wasn’t sure if Miguel intended for such a small blast from his bomb or if it had misfired somehow, but she was thankful for it all the same. Euphoric relief washed through her as the shock and adrenaline started to wear off and the realization that they had successfully stopped the bombing sank in.

Cheyenne raised her face, wanting nothing more in that moment than a kiss from Faulkner to celebrate their survival. Only, as soon as she saw his expression, all the joy she felt evaporated like mist in the sun.

He wasn’t looking at her; his expression was solemn as he stared intently just over her shoulder.

“Miguel,” she whispered, but Faulkner’s eyes finally lowered and he met her gaze. The look in them told her she didn’t want to know. She did not want to turn to the frighteningly still body of a seventeen-year-old boy and see for herself.

But that was what she did. It was what she had to do.

She cried, “No! Oh, Miguel!” And tenderly as she could, took those small shoulders in her arms and turned him. “Oh God, baby. Sweet boy. You’re going to be okay, hang in there, ’kay? Stay with me.” Her mouth crumpled and her chin quivered uncontrollably, making speech almost impossible.

Miguel’s stomach wound made Dude’s injuries look like nothing more than playground boo-boos. There was a strange hollowness to his middle that terrified her.

Adrenaline flooded anew as she prepared to wade into the battle for this child’s life.

“Don’t let go, baby,” she told him. “You stay with me.”

“Shy, sweetheart.” Faulkner’s voice came through. Somewhere in all the pandemonium happening inside her head, he was the calm within the storm. “Lay him back a little. Let’s see.
Ah, fuck me. I’m sorry, Shy.
” His soft curse held a lifetime of experience. That experience told him when there was no hope.

And it broke her fucking heart. Her eyes snapped to him in panic and she shook her head, shaky in jerky denial.

Then she heard a tiny crackle of a voice and looked down into Miguel’s pale earnest face.

“Did—they—find the—rest?” Long pauses with shallow pants in between, but she understood every word.

“Yes.” She blatantly lied because she had no way to know the answer to that yet. But that didn’t matter—he needed peace right now, needed to believe that he’d been able to reverse his actions and redeem himself. “All clear. You did it. You saved them.” She laid a tender kiss on his too cold forehead. “You saved everybody.”

His lips stretched fractionally in smile of victory. “I—couldn’t—do it. I’m sorry. I never should—have come. Never wanted to but—she—made me. Said I didn’t—love—love my brothers if I pussied out.” He faded and seemed to wilt in her arms and she felt panic rise again. “I loved—them. I did. But s’not right. Just—not—”

Then nothing. His mouth moved in a silent gasp and suddenly it was if he weighed only half as much as he had only a moment ago. Cheyenne knew he was gone.

“No. This isn’t right. It isn’t fair! He’s changed. He was sorry! Didn’t they know he was sorry? It should be okay now! This isn’t fair!
GODDAMMIT!
”

She sobbed as she gathered him up.

The pain was almost more than she could bear. It might have broken her in that moment if not for one thing, the one thing that had become her greatest joy and her greatest source of strength—her husband.

As she cried, she held that poor abused boy to her chest.

Faulkner wrapped them up in his big strong arms and held them both to his.