Savage Son

by Jack Carr

  Rainsford!

  My weapon!

  Aleksandr scrambled to his knees. Crawling to his crossbow, he brought it to his shoulder, his eye finding the scope as Raife Hastings descended from above in a controlled fall.

  * * *

  Raife flew down the rock face, his feet finding just enough purchase to direct his movement as he hurled himself toward his sister’s killer.

  He felt the arrow take him in the right shoulder. Its broad head pierced tissue and penetrated bone, his right arm immediately incapacitated. His target struggled to get to his feet, fumbling with a second bolt from his quiver. Raife’s left foot found a solid stone, planted firmly, and launched him into his antagonist, sending both of them over the edge of the precipice.

  CHAPTER 83

  FIFTEEN FEET TO THE right and they would have both been killed on the jagged rocks. Instead, they went over the edge onto a scree slope just shy of vertical. Raife felt Aleksandr take the brunt of the first hit as his body connected with a protruding rock, sending them careening toward the sea. Raife’s face made contact with the earth and he momentarily lost consciousness, his frame briefly becoming a rag doll. He came to as his already-disabled arm shattered against a rock just before he splashed into the knee-deep surf, his leg twisting into an unnatural position with an audible snap.

  Before the frigid water could completely take his breath away, Raife pushed himself to a sitting position. Gasping for air and attempting to take stock of his injuries, he wondered what happened to Aleksandr.

  * * *

  “Looks like a compound fracture,” a voice in heavily accented Russian said above the cacophony of the surf. “You of all people know that injuries like that almost certainly lead to death in this country. Look around you. No hospital for thousands of miles.”

  The waves surged in across the rocky beach, and Raife used the one arm that worked to keep his head above the icy froth.

  “You were indeed a worthy adversary. Very similar to your sister. She died right here, just up the beach on those rocks. The stupid whore jumped to her death. Killed one of my dogs, with a bone of all things, and then took the other one with her. I never even got a shot off. The pursuit was thrilling, though. So much better than the savages we import for sport. With you, S. Rainsford, I did get a shot off. How’s the shoulder? I’m about to get another shot off and add you to my collection.”

  As he spoke, he used the crossbow’s versa-draw system to retract the string and cock the weapon. He then loaded a short arrow from the quiver into the rail and clicked it into position on the bowstring.

  “I have bested the great SEAL and tracker, S. Rainsford. I am the supreme hunter!”

  “You’re no hunter. You’re nothing but a killer, a sick, demented killer,” Raife spat.

  Anger flashed in Zharkov’s eyes.

  “Your friends are all dead by now. No one is coming. Sit up, so I can kill you like a man.”

  Raife struggled to bring his broken leg under him and get in a sitting position. He was going to face his death head-on. He admired the beauty of the coastline, the rocks and gravel beneath him, the arctic water rushing past. The sounds, the birds, the cliff, reminded him of Kodiak, and he remembered that this was exactly the reason the SEAL training facility had been built there; to mimic these conditions.

  “Just remember to watch your back.”

  “What?”

  “Someone is coming for you. Someone who will not stop until he pulls your beating heart from your chest and shows it to you. You are about to find out what it’s like to be hunted.”

  Aleksandr put the crossbow to his shoulder and took aim. In all likelihood the bolt would go right through Raife at this distance, taking out both lungs and the heart; he wanted to preserve the head for his collection. The imperialist Navy SEAL and world-renowned hunter would be his most prized trophy.

  “You’ll be with your sister in a few seconds. Be sure and tell that bitch I said ‘fuck you’ for killing my dogs. Her head does make an attractive trophy, though.”

  What was wrong? Aleksandr willed his finger to pull the trigger, but nothing was happening. He tried again, confused. His breathing was heavy, and his head felt like someone was slowing turning down the dimming switch of a lightbulb. He sank to his knees on the gravel beach in front of his quarry, his crossbow falling from his grasp. He looked down to see the wooden shaft of an arrow protruding from the left side of his chest. He admired its craftsmanship, trying to place where he’d seen it before as his body jolted forward, a second shaft appearing alongside the first. Aleksandr gazed at the native arrowheads in an odd mix of wonder and bewilderment, then fell forward into the crashing surf.

  * * *

  “Raife! Raife!”

  Reece scrambled down the rocks toward the beach, sliding along with the scree in a semi-controlled descent. He had watched Raife fall to his side and disappear beneath the waves, the powerful undertow dragging him out to sea along with the man who, moments earlier, had him dead to rights.

  Reece hit the beach at a dead sprint, the wet pebbles doing their best to impede his progress. He crashed into the surf, arms searching desperately for his friend.

  A body.

  Reece held tight and heaved it out of the water, turning it over and looking into the open death stare of Aleksandr Zakarov.

  Fuck!

  Reece pushed the body away, frantically feeling for a second one.

  “Come on!”

  There!

  A shoulder rolling in the surf.

  Reece surged toward it as the ocean gave him one last chance.

  Got him!

  Reece grabbed his friend as another wave surged over them, quickly rushing back out to sea underneath itself and working to bring the two warriors along with it. Reece wrestled through the icy water, looking back at the incoming waves, dragging Raife toward shore. He dug in to resist the undertow, then heaved forward in the brief respite between waves. In knee-deep water, then ankle-deep, Reece continued to hoist his comrade from the current that threatened to pull them into the depths.

  Finally, above the relative safety of the low-water mark, Reece scanned the cliffs above for threats before turning his full attention to his friend.

  Reece had no idea what had transpired before he sent the two arrows through Zakarov’s heart, so he immediately assessed his patient, worried that the cold water could mask a massive arterial bleed. Even through his pant leg, Reece could tell there was something seriously wrong with Raife’s leg. His right arm was bent in an unnatural position, the swelling increasing by the second, to say nothing of the arrow shaft that protruded from his shoulder. Reece felt for breathing and a pulse. Pulse was weak. No breathing.

  Shit!

  “Stay with me, buddy!”

  A quick check of Raife’s airway confirmed that it was clear, so Reece delivered two quick rescue breaths, watching his friend’s chest rise and fall with the lifesaving respiratory assistance. Reece jerked back as Raife’s body involuntarily lurched up, his eyes opening wide as his lungs drew in the much-needed oxygen.

  Raife’s eyes came to focus on the man who had just saved his life. As he returned from the dead, he was hardly able to form his first word: “Zharkov?”

  Reece shook his head. “It’s done, brother.”

  Raife closed his eyes and nodded.

  “We need to get you off this beach,” Reece said, assessing the routes up.

  “Get this fucking arrow out of me!”

  Reece knew he had to do something with the bolt. It had penetrated completely though Raife’s shoulder. The razor-sharp broadhead was projecting out his back.

  “Turn on your side and try to think of something pleasant.”

  Reece positioned his friend on his side and carefully unscrewed the arrowhead from the bolt. He then grabbed the shaft from just below the fletchings and, without warning, pulled the carbon intruder from Raife’s body.

  A heavy grunt was all that escaped the SEAL’s lungs.

&nb
sp; “That wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Reece said.

  “Speak for yourself. I think my leg’s broken. Arm, too.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Reece responded, checking Raife’s distal and pedal pulses. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Reece charged up the rocky shore and grabbed two pieces of driftwood, snapping one over his thigh before running back to his patient.

  “I’m going to splint these, buddy. No sense in dragging you out of here if the bones are going to grind through those arteries.”

  Reece attached the thicker makeshift splint to Raife’s upper leg, lashing it in place with his tourniquet and belt. He then did the same for Raife’s arm, using Zakarov’s crossbow sling to secure the improvised splint in place.

  “How did you get here? How are we getting out?” Raife asked.

  “Your dad and Thorn are coming in with the Albatross. The boys are here, too; Farkus took some shrapnel to the leg. He’s in bad shape but Eli, Devan, and Chavez are moving him to extract along with your cell mates. Even Edo made the trip.”

  “What? You invaded Russia?”

  “Didn’t have much choice. And if we don’t make it to extract, we are getting left behind, so let’s get you up and out of here.”

  Raife turned his head to look at the steep scree slope before them.

  “I’m really glad you joined me for those workouts. Looks like I’m back to owing you one,” Raife said.

  “If I make it to the top of this hill, you will. Up you go,” Reece said as he grabbed the larger man by the wrist and leg, rolling him up and into a fireman’s carry.

  One step at a time, Reece.

  CHAPTER 84

  REECE PUSHED THE SIX-WHEELED off-road vehicle through the falling sleet. Raife kept drifting in and out of consciousness in the second row of seats. Without a GPS to guide him, Reece drove toward the rising sun just visible as a lighter section of the horizon, hidden behind a gray wall of clouds. They were two hours late for extract and Reece knew the odds of getting off this island with his friend were minuscule.

  They had launched with too little information and broke the cardinal rule of mission planning: they had no secondary or tertiary plan for extract. Everything hinged on making it to the Albatross, which Thorn would pilot as close to the wave tops as possible until hitting international airspace. Russian technology remained encapsulated in the late 1980s, which gave them a slim chance.

  Never tell me the odds.

  The weather was turning for the worse. If Thorn and Jonathan had delayed extract it was likely they were all trapped on the island with no means of escape.

  Reece rounded a bend and turned the wheel right, leaving what passed for a road and going directly for the Bering Sea, a horseshoe-shaped cove visible through the windshield. It looked protected enough from the weather; it would be possible to get a plane in and out. The only thing missing was the plane.

  Reece slammed on the brakes as a lone figure stepped into their path fifty yards ahead, a Belgian-made FAL rifle pointed directly at them.

  Reece managed to find the door handle and pushed it open, showing his empty hands to the old gunfighter before exposing his head and identifying himself to Raife’s father.

  The old man lowered his rifle and charged toward the vehicle.

  “What the bloody hell? Where’s Raife?”

  Reece paused and closed his eyes.

  “Raife’s in the back, sir. He’s pretty banged up. I think a broken arm and a bad leg break. Probably a concussion. If we don’t get him medical attention, he’s not going to make it.”

  The old man’s eyes bore straight through the younger commando in front of him, the same green eyes as his son, asking the question without saying the words. What happened to my daughter?

  “Eli told me, Reece. He told me Hanna is dead.”

  Reece’s eyes filled with emotion. “I’m sorry, sir. We were too late.”

  Jonathan was a man accustomed to the loss that comes from a lifetime of war in the African bush, but now the old man felt a new and awful emptiness move into his soul. He’d left the death, the executions, the genocide, and the torture behind on the Dark Continent and even so, the darkness had found him. Now his youngest was gone. Her wild spirit was free.

  “Jonathan,” Reece said in a measured tone. “We have to get out of here. How long ago did the plane leave?”

  The usually stoic old warrior swallowed hard. He’d aged a decade since Montana.

  “Jonathan!”

  “They left an hour ago. Thorn, Farkus, Devan, Eli, and Chavez, along with the prisoners. Farkus wasn’t doing well. Those crazy bastards all wanted to stay but I wouldn’t hear of it. They’d done enough. If my son and daughter weren’t leaving this island, then I wasn’t, either. I couldn’t go home without my children. They could go home to theirs.”

  “Attu Island is our only way out. It’s directly east. Load up.”

  “What are you going to do, lad? Drive there?”

  “There has got to be a way to communicate in that lodge. These Russians had working night vision, which means they had a secure area where whatever they hit us with to take out our electronics wouldn’t penetrate. We need to find it and reach the naval base on Attu.”

  “No one is going to send the Coast Guard to invade Russia and rescue us. We’re a band of mercenaries. Thorn and the team are probably getting locked up as we speak. I saw it in Africa, Reece. No one is coming but Russians. I plan on taking as many as I can with me before I go.”

  Reece nodded in understanding. He had wanted to die when his wife and daughter were taken from him, and he’d wanted to kill as many of those responsible before he went down. He opened his mouth to argue, but another voice broke through the sub-Siberian air, an American voice with no hint of a Russian accent.

  “Drop your weapons or die.”

  CHAPTER 85

  REECE AND JONATHAN INSTINCTIVELY went to a knee as three dark dry-suit-clad commandos holding M4 carbines converged on their position.

  “Names!” the unknown voice commanded.

  “Fuck you,” Jonathan hissed.

  Reece pushed his FAL toward the ground.

  “It’s okay,” Reece said before directing his attention to the new threat. “I’m James Reece. I’m here with Raife and Jonathan Hastings.”

  “I’d ask you the word of the day, but I’m sure you don’t know it,” the man who was obviously in charge said as he moved in closer, lowering his rifle. “I’m Lieutenant Kevin O’Malley, SDV Team One. You guys must be pretty important to divert us from a [Redacted X X X].”

  [Redacted X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X].

  “We’ve got a man down in the back of the truck,” Reece said, moving to his feet. “He can’t walk and needs a medic. Multiple EKIA are down. I don’t think there are any others, but Russian military is probably inbound.”

  “Oh, they’re inbound all right,” the SEAL leader confirmed.

  “Charlie-zero-one to Nautilus, I pass TOUCHDOWN. I say again, TOUCHDOWN,” the platoon commander said into his OSK headset. Then, hitting a push-to-talk attached to what Reece recognized as an L3Harris AN/PRC-163 handheld radio, he said, “Charlie one-one, call in the z-birds, and send Spanky up; we’ve got a nonambulatory friendly here.”

  O’Malley put out his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you. Not sure what you’re doing in Russia, but whatever it is, we are here to get you out.”

  The team’s medic emerged out of the morning light and climbed into the odd-looking 6x6 to assess his patient.

  “What happened?” he asked as his hands checked for a pulse and worked his way down Raife’s body.

  “He took
a tumble off a cliff and nearly drowned,” Reece replied. “That was after he was shot with a crossbow. Is he going to make it?”

  “He’s hypothermic. He’s breathing and has strong distal pulses, but these displaced compound fractures have me worried. Starting IV. Need to get him to the IDC. We need to extract now,” the medic directed at his platoon commander.

  O’Malley turned back to Reece. “Sir, we have got to get you off this beach. We have a JMAU SRT standing by. He’ll be in good hands. The extract platforms are on their way. They might be a little different than the ones you used. Sub is waiting for us four nautical miles out.”

  “What? How did you know where we were?”

  “Above my pay grade,” O’Malley said, clearly not sure what he was allowed to divulge. “All I know is that this is an Agency-directed op. We have a Maritime Branch liaison on the sub with us who helped coordinate.”

  A change in the tone of the surf caused Reece to pick his head up.

  “That’s our ride,” O’Malley said in response to Reece’s questioning look.

  The two Zodiacs, or Combat Rubber Raiding Craft, that emerged out of the fog looked more akin to stealth fighters than the z-birds Reece had used in the Teams.

  “Times change,” O’Malley said before keying his mic. “Chief, we need a couple guys to help carry. Time to load up.”

  Two SEALs wearing dark green dry suits materialized from the perimeter and two more maneuvered up the beach from the black Zodiacs. One carried a SKEDCO Tactical SKED that he transformed into a stretcher in the center of the perimeter. They all assisted the medic in moving Raife’s broken and unconscious body from the vehicle and strapped him into the green flexible plastic stretcher, IV bag on his chest.

  Reece grabbed a handle and heard O’Malley say, “Moving,” into his radio.

  They patrolled toward the ocean, toward freedom, the naval commandos bracketing the stretcher in a tight diamond formation with weapons up looking for threats. As they reached the surf zone Reece could see that their extraction platforms were very similar to the Zodiacs he’d used in the Teams, but had what looked to be a radar-deflecting or absorbing shell over the top to eliminate or reduce radar signature. The engines were muffled or possibly even electric to reduce sound.