Boiling Point (An Ethan Galaal Thriller Book 4)

by Isaac T. Hooke

  Aaron held up a finger, indicating for the huntsman to hold.

  “Constrictor, Huntsman, what’s your status?” came Ethan’s voice over their TCAPS headsets. As the GEO guard’s halted, Aaron clicked his mic button twice to signal that the two of them were busy. There was the sound of the guard turning on the spot, his boots dragging in the dust and gravel.

  They heard the man sigh, then say to himself in Catalan, “Foder perdre el temps…”

  Aaron smiled internally. Having been in Barcelona for as long as he had, he knew when someone was saying when something was a fucking waste of time.

  He nodded at Huntsman.

  Aaron rolled smoothly out from behind the corner of the dumpster, coming into a crouch position on his hands and knees right behind the guard’s legs. Quick as a snake, Huntsman rose up, whipped the extension cord around the unsuspecting man’s neck and yanked him viciously backwards. The officer went flying backwards over Aaron, his FN Herstal P90 submachine gun falling from his surprised hands.

  Huntsman dragged the choking man behind the dumpster, as Aaron grabbed his fallen weapon and got back into cover too. Before the GEO officer could give so much as offer a strangled gasp, Huntsman’s sinewy forearms had locked about his neck and head and squeezed powerfully. A second or two of massively restricted blood and airflow to the brain and the man’s eyes rolled up in his head.

  With the easy practice of a man who had done this many times before, Huntsman flipped the prostrate guard over and began hogtieing him with the electrical cable.

  Aaron slapped some duct tape across the man’s mouth and eyes––a habit he had picked up from William, though he would never admit it to him––and then immediately spoke into his TCAPS mic.

  “This is Constrictor; we have one GEO neutralized. Requesting sit-rep.”

  “Copperhead here,” came the immediate reply. “One GEO neutralized here too.”

  “You want to secure the perimeter of the building before we infiltrate?” Aaron asked.

  There was a pause of a couple of heartbeats, then: “Do you have an immediate and clear entry point?”

  “That’s affirmative, we’re bloody hot to trot, mate,” said Huntsman. “Right outside the rear loading bay.”

  Another brief pause, then Ethan’s voice came over the comm: “Huntsman, Constrictor, you’re green to go. Get in there. Let’s take them unawares. Do you copy?”

  “Lima Charlie,” Aaron replied briskly, glancing quickly at the safety on his rifle to make sure it was flicked off. “We are a go.”

  “First pair to get hands on Maelstrom drinks for free tonight,” Ethan said. “Go to work.”

  “Wilco,” Huntsman answered. “Out.”

  With a surreptitious glance to make sure that none of the other roving GEO officers were in sight, Aaron and Huntsman hustled over to the doorway.

  Aaron depressed the handle and, gun leading, made his way into the interior of the loading bay.

  Into the belly of the beast.

  It was a promising start, but Ethan knew better than to get lured into a false sense of security. Two men down out of a known half a dozen, and a possible eight, perimeter guards––although that number was purely an educated guess––was just scratching the surface.

  And who knows how many more inside. There are a lot of variables. And all it takes to turn the whole scenario into a grade-A Charlie Foxtrot is a single gunshot.

  Still, it wasn’t as if they had any better options than just to move forward, move on and keep on moving. Bretta was at the end of whatever road it was that they were walking now, and her best shot at survival was in their speed. Currently, they had surprise on their side. Ethan was not fool enough to think that would last right up to the point where he had his gun at the Kidon’s collective head. The best they could hope for was that by the time their enemy realized their base of operations had been breached, the Kidon would only have a limited amount of time to organize themselves.

  These GEO boys are well-trained to a point, but we can’t expect the Kidon to be as easily rattled.

  There were times when a team had to tread with velvet-covered boots and there were times when they had to hit a complex like an unexpected freight train coming through someone’s sitting room wall.

  And I’ve a feeling we might just have worn through our velvet boots.

  At that moment, Ethan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He reached into his combat pants and pulled it out. It was a message from another scrambled number. It said, simply:

  PARC AGRARI DEL BAIX LLOBREGAT

  30 MINUTES

  ETHAN GALAAL + DR. AVESTA ONLY

  So the Kidon had decided to go through with the trade offer after all. With any luck, this would mean that his team would be striking at the same time Bretta was being prepped for the swap.

  If she’s out of whatever hole they’ve been keeping her in, then we still might have a shot at saving her life.

  The thought injected a new fire into his guts. He gritted his teeth with determination as he replaced the phone.

  “On me,” he told William.

  “Copy,” the Texan replied.

  Ethan got to his feet and sprinted across the darkening industrial yard. His boots sent up clouds of old cement dust as he hightailed it over the open ground. He fetched up against one of the temporary modular buildings, pressed his back to it and then moved cautiously down its length until he came to the corner. He peered past the edge, checking for hostiles on the other side and then, seeing none, ducked back into cover.

  “Clear,” he whispered over his comms to William. “But window left.”

  “Copy,” the big Texan said.

  Ethan ducked back around the corner, stalked to the window and peered inside while William placed one hand on his shoulder to let him know that he was covering him.

  There was no one in the room––a small rudimentary mess area, the likes of which construction workers might sit in while they had their coffee break or lunch. Crinkled bags of fast food overflowed from a waste basket––evidence that it was in use.

  “Clear,” Ethan said. He snapped his attention to the fire door that lay not twenty meters across another open stretch of yard. He nodded at the fire door. “What do you think?”

  “Worth a shot,” William replied.

  Ethan nodded. “You first.”

  “Copy that.”

  Without discussing the point further, both men hurried across the open ground at a crouch, with William leading the way. The word SALIDA was stenciled onto the warehouse wall next to the door.

  The pair ran in that half-crouched crab that made them smaller targets while simultaneously lowering their centers of gravity. They moved their assault rifles in arcs as they went, eyes darting from one potential ambush site to the next, ears straining for any sound out of the ordinary.

  And, just as William reached the fire exit, the door opened and a GEO officer strode through. To his credit, the man only stood frozen for a couple of heartbeats––impressive when Ethan considered what the sight of the six-foot-five Texan stalking towards him must have looked like––but it was that second that made all the difference.

  William didn’t hesitate. In the infinitesimal time it took the GEO officer to comprehend just what it was that he was seeing, and to start raising his MP5 submachine gun, William stepped in close to the man. Letting his own rifle fall, which was attached to his assault webbing by a strap, William grabbed the GEO officer’s MP5 by the barrel with both hands and forced it upwards. In the same movement, he planted one tree trunk of a leg behind the guard’s own legs and half pushed half hip-tossed him backwards over it with all the prodigious force he could muster. The disarmed guard fell backward hard, as if he’d just been clotheslined off a motorbike. Ethan heard the breath burst out of him in a noisy, wheezing expulsion, as he thumped onto the bare concrete.

  William swiftly knelt down and rammed the butt of the MP5 into the guard’s sternum, causing his eyes to almost pop out of his head.
Then, he cracked him in the temple with it and the GEO officer went limp.

  That was, usually, when the coup de grâce would be administered with the aid of the combat knife. However, William was mindful of Ethan instructions, and instead began to methodically bind the unconscious man’s wrists and ankles.

  Ethan meanwhile shut the fire door behind them and took up a covering position.

  Once their prisoner was bound and gagged, Ethan motioned for the huge Texan to haul him over to the door marked as a lady’s bathroom. Ethan, taking point, pushed the door open with his toe and made a quick examination of the room.

  “Empty,” he signaled with his hands.

  William dumped him inside one of the cubicles, and used another set of flexi-cuffs to secure the man’s arms behind his back to the toilet cistern.

  Ethan opened the door and led the way out of the washroom. The two men moved steadily down the empty corridor. Overhead, the stark strip-lighting buzzed and flickered. They checked the few rooms they came across; moving in fast through the cheap doors but finding no one.

  “Constrictor, sit-rep,” Ethan said over the comm.

  “Nothing so far,” Aaron replied. “This building is huge, Copperhead.”

  Ethan and William continued to slink through the enormous hallways of the abandoned factory. Ethan felt like some sort of parasite creeping through the innards of a larger organism.

  It’s all this goddamn talk of viruses, he thought, as he checked yet another empty office.

  He had known their luck wasn’t going to hold forever, that it would have taken a miracle to find Bretta without encountering a single enemy. When fate finally did decide to dump them into the fire though, it was in the most inopportune spot a soldier could ever ask for: a long, empty, brightly-lit hallway.

  The pair of them were halfway down the corridor when, around the corner of the far end, two more GEO officers appeared.

  In a split second, Ethan evaluated the environment, the weapons, the men, the actions available to either party, and the repercussions of taking or not taking said actions.

  Whether he consciously meant to do it, or whether it was his body recognizing the inevitability of the unfolding situation before his brain had, Ethan dropped to one knee to create a smaller target for his enemy, sighted, and squeezed off two shots.

  27

  It took Bretta quite a while to shuffle her bruised and battered form after Celeste released her. She had no restraints, nothing to hamper her movements, but she was so sore that it took all her willpower simply to hobble along in Celeste’s wake, as she was led through the neglected corridors of whatever vast structure the Kidon had holed up in. She kept expecting Mia, who followed behind, to shove her forward at any moment, but the woman showed unusual restraint, for which Bretta was grateful.

  In as much pain as she was, Bretta could feel the tender muscles and fibers of her body beginning to warm as the slow procession moved through the echoing building. Tentatively, she stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders, flexed her wrists and fingers.

  If a chance presents itself I have to be ready to take it.

  Every now and again, Bretta caught sight of patrolling men dressed in dark blue combat fatigues––some masked, some helmeted––and cradling Heckler & Koch MP5s or Sig Sauer SG 552 Commando assault rifles.

  “I knew you guys wouldn’t come all the way to Spain just to get a hold of me, or the target,” Bretta said. “You’ve been on a recruiting drive too.”

  Neither Celeste or Mia deigned to answer this bit of sarcasm, so Bretta decided to ask her question outright.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” she asked, as more emerged from a corridor and then into a stairwell. “Hiring out for flunkies isn’t the usual Mossad SOP, is it?”

  Mia gave another little sigh from behind Bretta, and Bretta half-braced herself to be struck. It didn’t happen, though.

  She knows she’d only slow me down even more.

  The stairwell echoed to their footfalls as the trio made their way down a couple of flights of steps. Bretta had to hold onto the rough metal railing as they descended, gritting her teeth against the occasional stab of pain from her joints.

  “Where the hell––” she began, but was suddenly overcome by a fearsome coughing fit. She stopped, leaned against the stairwell and almost sagged to her knees as the coughs racked her aching ribs. Eventually, she managed to get herself under control and straightened up, gasping.

  “Sorry,” she croaked, wiping away the tears from her streaming eyes. “Waterboarding really plays havoc with the lungs...”

  Celeste was looking at her keenly, with––and Bretta was inclined to think that she had mistaken the look due to the tears that impaired her vision––something very much akin to pity. When she had rubbed at her eyes again though, Celeste had turned her back on her.

  “What is this place?” she asked as they set off again. She cast an eye over the green damp that was creeping down the wall of the stairwell. “I hope the Israeli government got it cheap at least.”

  “Death Angel, we’re all professionals here,” Celeste said, without turning around, “but if you don’t stop asking questions, I’m pretty sure dear Mia back there might just run out of patience with you.”

  “That would be a shame,” Bretta said, coughing up some bloody phlegm and spitting it on the ground. “She’s been such a peach in the little time we’ve been acquainted.”

  Mia said nothing.

  Gradually as they continued, Bretta assembled enough visual evidence to conclude they were in some sort of large industrial building––possibly an old or abandoned factory. After Celeste led them through a dusty and threadbare office, home now to only a handful of sad desks and a strong smell of mice, she had seen enough of the same company logo to ascertain that this facility had once been used to manufacture bags of cement.

  Led through this office, out into another harshly lit corridor and then past a set of grinding double doors, Bretta soon found herself in a cavernous space. She paused just inside the doorway, sweat prickling at her forehead and, under the cover of a feigned burst of pain, took a brief moment to access her surroundings.

  This section reminded Bretta of the inside of a brewery or winery. Huge, twenty-thousand liter stainless-steel silos ranged along one of the walls. The front hatches of the silos were open and, in front of each of the massive dull gray vessels, there was a small hillock of cement––no longer dry and powdery, but set into a solid, cloggy hill by countless days and nights of rain and bad weather that had seeped in through the huge windows that ran the circumference of the room. Though large metal industrial lights hung from the ceiling it was clear they didn’t work because the area was lit by a collection of hastily erected construction spotlights on tripods.

  Thanks to the enormous, five-meter-high, steel frame windows though––caked in grime as they might have been––Bretta was able to see that dusk was making way to night outside.

  But of what day, I wonder?

  There were more men clad in navy tactical gear and sporting weapons––five that Bretta counted at a glance––arrayed about the area in varying degrees of alertness. Bretta noticed a man strolling across a gantry above her, caught sight of the SAKO TRG M-10 bolt-action rifle that he carried and racked her brains trying to remember what military units used that weapon. She could think of none off the top of her head.

  All of this Bretta soaked in at a glance, but what really held her attention was the van idling in the middle of the open space; a nondescript Ford Transit, taillights glowing red, rear doors gaping open. Bedouin stood by the driver’s door dressed in the same black combat fatigues as Celeste and Mia. The same fatigues they had been wearing on the night all of them had first exchanged pleasantries in the university in Tehran.

  “My carriage for the ball,” Bretta quipped, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

  Celeste had stridden forward to talk to one of the navy-clad men, and ignored her.

 
I get in that van I’m as good as dead.

  Even if Sam had a rescue op planned, the back of a van was essentially a deathtrap. It would take only half a second for her captors to execute her in there.

  Not sure what else to do, and wanting to buy some time, Bretta doubled over and began coughing furiously once again; great hacks that shook her body and resulted in a string of drool dangling disgustingly from her torpid lips.

  “For God’s sake,” she heard Mia mutter from behind her in Hebrew. The woman took a step closer to Bretta, though she was clearly torn whether to thump her on the back or in the face.

  Through her contrived coughing fit, Bretta saw Celeste glance over her shoulder at her before turning back to the gun-for-hire.

  Mia grasped Bretta by the upper arm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Mia’s pistol hand was, for the moment at least, at her side.

  Just as Bretta was preparing to make one last desperate and, no doubt, fatal show of resistance, there came the unmistakable, though muted, double pop of a suppressed weapon being discharged in a confined space. It seemed to come from another part of the warehouse.

  Every head in the room bobbed upward, alert, listening.

  Then, the abrupt roar of automatic gunfire echoed out of a broken set of double doors on the opposite side of the warehouse, bouncing out of the corridor in a racket that none of the men and women present could mistake for anything else.

  And, in a splint second, every instinct in Bretta’s battered body told her what was going on.

  Ethan.

  Bretta reached out and grabbed Mia’s pistol hand at almost the same moment the Kidon woman raised it to Bretta’s head. Fueled with the sort of adrenaline that turns sinew to steel and banishes the memory of pain and exhaustion, the type that only those who know they’re fighting for their very lives are ever charged with, Bretta spun and flipped the Kidon member over her shoulder as easily as she might a sack of potatoes.