King was going at the pace of a slow jog. Everything was that glowing green in front of him. His breathing was steady, and his adrenaline, his temper, had calmed since leaving the SUV.
“You pegged me, Sam. This hits close to home, and I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I respect that, and I also hate that I’m not with you right now.”
“Oh, but you are. And you always will be.”
“I have you at a quarter mile out, X,” Omari interjected. It was perfect timing. King needed to focus. “Let’s stay as close to the tree line as you can. I know we’re not worried about Marcus Christian, but James Carter has at least some combat experience. He was Royal Navy for the Brits for a time. Now, I know that ain’t a frogman, but he’s not a civilian either.”
“Bite your tongue,” Sam said in jest.
King let a smile cross his face. This is what he needed to settle him in. All soldiers were different. And there was a time when he needed to hate his enemy to be at his best. But now it was the comfort of his favorite girl, and Omari was really starting to speak his language.
“Seriously, though,” Omari said, “keep that swagger, but stay on your toes. Like I said, Carter is a veteran.”
“Well, he’s going to need to be a lot more than that.”
King hugged the tree line like Omari suggested. His head was on a swivel, even though he knew it would be a minute before he would catch up to the two men trying to set the nuke.
“You with me, Terry?”
“I’m with you,” Terry whisper-shouted back.
King couldn’t imagine the fear Terry was feeling. He had zero combat experience. It was pitch black. He was staring through goggles that made it seem like he was in a video game. They were racing toward an albeit relatively small nuclear warhead, and he was with someone he’d never met before in his life.
King, however, began to feel the opposite. His breathing was even, and the closer he got to where he was supposed to be, the more relaxed he felt. This was the time where a man in his position just let the things he couldn’t control fall from his mind. On any playing field, Marcus Christian and James Carter posed zero threat to him. A comparison would be a guy who won a lot of local bar fights in the ring with a UFC champion. The rest, particularly the briefcase nuclear bomb, King could do nothing about. So it melted away from his lizard brain and allowed him pure focus going forward.
Kill Marcus and James if they got in the way.
Find the bomb.
It was that simple.
Until it wasn’t.
The loudest blast that King had ever heard in his long history in the military echoed through the Mississippi Embayment. It was as if King were standing in a rain cloud and a crashing thunder erupted all around him. He turned backward, pulled Terry into the trees, and pulled up his night-vision goggles so he could watch the fiery plume reach toward the dark sky with his own eyes.
“That was the nuke,” Terry said breathlessly. “It went off. It went off!”
“Sam, you guys okay?”
“Holy shit, X. That had to be the second nuke. We’re okay. Holy shit!”
King could hear Terry wheezing beside him. The man was terrified. King was just devastated. And he was also white-knuckle-clutching what little grass surrounded him as he waited for what he hoped wouldn’t come.
But it did.
The ground beneath him began shaking violently.
“No,” Terry said. “No!”
The nuke had set off an earthquake. Everyone’s worst fear. Especially King’s.
As the ground continued to shift back and forth beneath him, the trees began shaking, almost as one. It was a surreal feeling. The only thing King could equate it to was when you were hammered drunk and the room began spinning out of control. As it continued to rumble, the only thing King could think about was his sister, his niece, and, for some crazy reason, Natalie Rockwell.
King grabbed Terry by the shirt and shouted, “Is it going to stop? How bad is it?”
But Terry couldn’t speak.
A tree fell over about a hundred feet from them, then another much closer. The shaking felt like it was beginning to intensify. The only thing on King’s mind then was, what next? If the first detonated nuke could cause this much action in the seismic zone, what would the second one do? There was no way he was going to wait around to find out.
King pulled himself up to his feet. He wobbled like a newborn foal but bent his knees for balance. A hot wave of wind blew through the entire area. The fallout from the blast. King pulled Terry up to his feet and began dragging him in the direction of Marcus and James.
“We can’t!” Terry began to shout. “Stop!” He began to drag his feet and pull away from King. “We have to get away from this bomb or we’re going to die!”
All of a sudden, the shaking stopped. The leaves of the trees around them continued to swish before they settled, but other than that everything was calm. Everything except for Terry.
“What are you doing?! We have to turn around!”
King finally stopped his forward momentum, planted his feet, and lifted Terry off the ground from under his arms. Then he sat him back down.
“Snap out of it!” King said. “If the first nuke did that much damage, what do you think the second might do?”
What King was saying wasn’t registering. Terry continued to fight King’s grip. This was fight-or-flight time, and Terry’s instincts were screaming at him to run.
“We have to go! You have to let me go!”
“Terry, stop fighting me! I need you!”
“LET ME GO!”
Terry broke free of King’s grip, but King lunged forward and caught him by the backpack. When King spun him around, Terry begin screaming and flailing his arms around. King had no choice. He cocked his right hand back and punched him in the side of the head. Hard. Terry went limp, and King caught him in his arms.
“Sam, you guys okay?” King said. “Are we okay here?”
“O and I are okay,” she came back in his ear. “And I have no idea if we are out of the radiation zone. All I know is that I feel fine right now, and you have to go make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
King squatted beneath Terry, hoisted him up on his shoulders, and walked him in the direction of trouble.
“You aren’t far now, X,” Omari said. “Get in there and give ’em hell.”
That’s exactly what King intended to do. Because in his mind, there was no other way forward.
38
King pulled his night-vision goggles down over his eyes and plodded forward. Terry didn’t have a lot of meat on his bones, but it was still a burden to carry him on such unstable footing. The trees were gone now. It was just rolling hills of sand and stone. King was completely exposed, but if he was, that meant Marcus and James were too. He could see the riverbank to his left and the water beyond it.
“X, it looks like they are on the move out,” Sam said. “They were close to the river, but now they’re moving west. And it seems they are picking up their speed.”
“How far?”
“It looks like the river winds around a bend to your right in front of you. They are scurrying up the embankment like a couple of rats. They must have set the bomb. Wait, hold on, Xander.”
King could hear Sam talking to someone, but he turned his focus to Terry while he had a moment. He slid him down off his shoulders and sat him on his ass.
“Terry,” King said as he smacked his face a bit. “Terry, you’ve gotta wake up.”
King shook him a little, and when he began to rouse, King slapped him gently a few more times on the cheeks.
“Terry, I need you, buddy. Our lives are on the line here.”
As Terry’s eyes began blinking open, King was praying he wouldn’t get the screaming and irrational Terry that the mini nuke had brought on.
“What happened?” Terry shook his head to try to clear the fog.
>
“Nuke went off a few miles away,” King said. “Tree fell and a branch knocked you out. You okay? You’re one tough son of a bitch, T. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I am?”
Terry was genuinely confused. King hadn’t known Terry long, but tough wasn’t a name he’d probably heard himself called before. Brave, for sure; the guy defuses bombs. King knew he had some stones on him or he wouldn’t be able to perform that sort of life-or-death trade. Now King was desperately and quickly trying to find that Terry.
“Terry, I need you. The two men are on the run. That means they’ve set the bomb.”
Terry tried to get to his feet. He stumbled a bit, but King grabbed his arm and pulled him up. King realized he may have hit him a little too hard.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. Yes, I’m good,” Terry said as he centered himself.
King pulled down Terry’s night-vision goggles for him.
“Listen, you can work the detector on your own, right?”
King could tell Terry’s wits had returned.
“Yeah, I got it. I can lead us right to the bomb. I can do this.”
King gave Terry a pat on the shoulder. “I know you can. And you’re going to have to do it on your own.”
King couldn’t see Terry’s eyes because of the goggles, but he could see his mouth gape open.
“What do you mean, where are you going?”
“I told you, the men who are doing all this are on the run. I have to track them down. I don’t know if they have more mini nukes or not.”
“But—”
King held up a finger when Sam came back in their ears. “Xander, I’ve just been told that even though the FBI has made this area a no-fly zone for now, there is a helicopter that has lifted off not too far from here. I don’t think I have to tell you where it’s going.”
“Where’s it going?” Terry said.
“It’s coming to pick them up. And I have to be there before it does. Terry, this doesn’t change anything.”
“What?” Terry took a step back. “It-it changes everything.”
King could feel panicky Terry making his valiant return. But King didn’t have time to calm him again.
“Terry! This changes nothing. I am going to do what I do best, and you are going to do what you do best. This is what all of your training was for. Did they teach you breathing techniques?”
“Yeah, they taught me some techniques.”
“Put them to use. I think the briefcase nuke that you are going to disarm is just around the bend in the river ahead of us. Stay along the waterline, and move fast. If they are getting a helo ride out of here, that timer is not going to be set for an hour. It will be much shorter. Especially after the other one already went off.” King paused for a second as he took Terry’s head in his hand and looked into his goggles. “You’ve got this, Terry. I have faith in you. I’m going to stop the bad guys from hurting anyone else, and you are going to stop that bomb from killing everyone you know. Got it?”
“You’ve got this, Terry,” Sam said through their earpieces.
Terry’s posture straightened. “I’ve got this. Don’t let those guys get away.”
“Not a chance in hell,” King said with a smile. “And that’s what I like to hear. Go get the job done, and I’ll see you on the news.” King pulled his knife from his pocket. “And take this, just in case the bomb is in a backpack and the zipper is locked. It will cut through anything.”
Terry nodded, took the knife, and put it in his pocket. King gave Terry a push in the direction of the mini nuke, and then he broke into a dead sprint up the sloping embankment. The sound of the incoming helicopter finally hit his ears, just as he hit his stride.
“I hear the helicopter,” King said as he ran.
“We do too,” Sam said. “They might have another bomb, X. You have to hurry.”
39
King didn’t slow down once he reached the peak of the embankment and found level ground. He was weaving in and out of the trees, doing his best not to get tripped up. He could hear the sirens coming his way. But they would be no help to him. The road wasn’t close to this stretch of the embayment. Stopping Marcus and James from leaving the area and possibly placing another bomb somewhere else was going to be up to him and him alone.
The helicopter was almost over top of him now. He could see the end of the trees, but he couldn’t see Marcus and James. He knew they would be in an open and at least somewhat flat spot waiting on the helicopter. That would make them an easy target if he could make it to them in time.
Finally, the helicopter’s rotors rustled the tops of the trees as it moved overhead. He only had a few seconds. When he sprinted out of the trees, he faced the reason he hadn’t been able to see the men waiting on their ride. Another hill was in front of him that looked to have another flat area at the top. The helicopter was hovering over a section of it a couple hundred yards away. King dug in and hurried up the hill.
“I hear you running, X,” Sam said. “Are you getting close?”
“The helo is hovering,” King said as he breathed loudly in and out. “They’re getting picked up.” Another deep breath. “I’m almost there.”
Sam knew not to continue conversation. King reached the crest of the hill and took in his hands the M4 that he’d slung around to his back. The light on the bottom of the helicopter was shining down on the men awaiting their ride. King pulled up his goggles and stopped running. He had them. The range on his M4 was easily five hundred meters, and he couldn’t have been more than two hundred away. He pulled the M4 to his shoulder and found the helicopter in his sights. It was just dropping down a ladder for the last ten feet, and when King looked to his left, he dropped down to the ground himself. If he hadn’t, the bullets from what King assumed was James’s gun would have ripped right through him.
King had no choice but to be out in the open. There wasn’t a good tactical spot on the raised flatland. As soon as he hit the ground, he began firing some defensive rounds. He didn’t want to hit the helicopter for fear that it might have a mini nuke inside. So until he could lock in, he just sprayed to the left side of the chopper to keep James from firing. James dropped to his stomach when King’s rounds came flying. King got the scope in front of his eye and saw Marcus take his first step up the ladder. But he was too slow.
King was no sniper, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a damn good shot. And with the fully automatic trigger, he would have a super consistent trigger pull. Coupling that with the steadiness of the ground helping him hold the rifle perfectly in place, there was no way he was going to miss. It was just a matter of whether or not what hit Marcus would be a kill shot.
King squeezed the trigger and a steady stream of 5.56 NATO rounds rifled toward Marcus Christian, who’d almost managed to scurry to the top of the ladder. But just like that, he took a nine-foot fall right onto his back. King had connected; he just didn’t know how well. Upon hearing the gunfire, James Carter’s worst nightmare had come true, and the helicopter pilot decided things were a little too dangerous and pulled the chopper up into the sky.
It was just King and James.
Now that there was no hurry, King fired a couple more rounds, jumped to his feet, and sprinted down the side of the hill. He lowered his night vision and ran around the side of the hill. Now that the helicopter was gone, he could hear Marcus’s cries of pain. He’d hit him but not killed him. Yet. This let him know exactly where he wanted to run to, and he kept his eye on the top of the hill as he went, just to make sure James wasn’t coming down after him.
“Just shush me to let me know you’re all right,” Sam said.
“Shh,” King responded.
“Now we’re all dead, you stupid bastard!” one of the men shouted from up over the hill.
King rounded the hill to where he wanted to be. Then he slowly made his way back up.
“In ten minutes we’re all dead!” the man shouted again. “Better stop and call yo
ur police buddies for a helicopter, or we’re all going to be turned into ash!”
“I can’t find it,” Terry said into King’s earpiece. “Guys, I can’t find it!”
King’s stomach dropped. Obviously, that was not what he wanted to hear from Terry, but after hearing either Marcus or James shout that there were only ten minutes left, Terry’s announcement was a real blow. King had no choice but to fast-forward his encounter.
As soon as he reached the crest of the hill, he saw Marcus sitting up and James with his back turned, searching for King in the wrong direction.
“It’s nowhere. I’m telling you, I can’t see it!” The panic was back in Terry’s voice.
Marcus saw King first, pointed at him, and shouted at James,
“There, he’s right behind you!”
James turned, rifle in hand, but King was already in shooting position. He held the trigger down and put at least six rounds in James.
“Shit!” Marcus shouted.
King lifted his goggles and flicked the tactical flashlight attached to his M4’s rail. Marcus shaded his eyes from the light with one hand as the other hand squeezed at his thigh. His hand was covered in blood. As soon as King made it to him, King swung the butt of his rifle and struck Marcus in the head. Hard enough to hurt, but King couldn’t knock him unconscious. He needed his help.
“Oh, damn it. I’m already hit. Get the hell off me!”
King knelt beside Marcus and put his knee on the gunshot wound in his thigh. Marcus shrieked loud enough for Sam to hear him a mile away without the earpiece.
“Tell me where the nuke is,” King said as he applied pressure. “Right now!”
Marcus just shouted in pain.
“Holy shit,” Terry said in King’s ear. “I found it. But there’s no way I can reach it! We’re dead!”
King raised up off Marcus. “Terry, where is it?”
Marcus started laughing. King shined his flashlight on him, and the man was actually smiling. King knew that meant what came next wasn’t going to be good.
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Power Move (Alexander King Book 4) Page 16
