Breaking Away (Military Romantic Suspense) (Book 3 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers)
BREAKING AWAY
BOOK 3 OF THE SEAL TEAM HEARTBREAKERS
TERESA J. REASOR
DEDICATION
To all the families of our men and women at arms, thank you for your many sacrifices. Without you standing firm and keeping the home fires burning, they could not do the job they do. God Bless you.
And to the Lethal Ladies. You are the bomb!
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Teresa J. Reasor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: teresareasor@msn.com
Cover Art by Tracy Stewart
Edited by Faith Freewoman
Teresa J. Reasor
PO Box 124
Corbin, KY 40702
Publishing History: First Edition 2013
ISBN 13: 978-0-9850069-4-5
ISBN 10: 0985006943
Kindle Edition
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Foreword
Part One: Going It Alone
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part Two: A Road Less Weary
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Other Books by Teresa Reasor
Connect with Teresa on Substance B
FOREWORD
Breaking Away came to me as two separate stories, and is told in that way for the first third of the book. I wanted you, dear Reader, to know the whole story of what had happened to Lieutenant Junior Grade Harold Timothy Carney, better known as Flash to his team members, and to the readers of the first two SEAL Team Heartbreakers books, who have patiently waited for his story.
And I felt it important for you to know how Samantha came to be where she needed to be, physically and emotionally, so she could find her way into Flash’s arms and heart.
Most books will begin in the middle of the action, or the mid point instead of the beginning. But that would have left many questions about Flash and Samantha’s circumstances and meant a great deal of backstory would have cluttered up the story. So, I’ve broken a romance rule and given you Flash and Samantha’s whole story, in the order it happened, just as it unfolded to me.
I hope you enjoy Breaking Away.
Teresa J. Reasor
PART ONE
OF
BREAKING AWAY
GOING IT ALONE
PROLOGUE
Lieutenant Junior Grade Harold ‘Flash’ Carney sighted, one by one, the four tangos on the adjoining roof through the thermal scope of his MK-11 sniper rifle. Each sentry guarded a corner of the building, making it damn hard for his guys to slip inside. With the suppressor on his rifle to muffle the report, he could take out two, maybe three of the guards, but the fourth might just make it down the stairs to warn the fuckers below of his team’s presence. He’d have to wait. Shit!
Despite the chill in the Iraqi night air, sweat ran along his spine beneath his body armor. He ignored it. Every breath tasted like dust, as though the sun had scorched the earth earlier in the day and kicked ash into the air. He suppressed the urge to spit and, with a grimace, swallowed.
Hawk’s signal on the com system clicked in his ear. He was already inside the building and in position. Good.
A man slithered up to a window on the back side of the structure, cut a hole in the glass, then reached through to unlock and raise the pane. He slid inside soundlessly and signaled. It was Bowie. Another man followed close behind him. Doc. A few minutes later more clicks sounded. Strong Man and Cutter.
And now Flash waited, keeping the four tangos in his sights. The lull gave him too much time to think about the visitors he’d met with back at the base. Cutter was on his ass to tell him what was going on, but he couldn’t. They’d ordered him to keep this secret. Their reason—members of his team could be involved in something illegal.
That was bullshit. He knew these guys. He’d place his life in any of their hands without a second thought.
You couldn’t find a more stand-up commanding officer than Adam “Hawk” Yazzie.
Zach “Doc” O’Connor was one of the best medics in the teams, and had risked his life more times than Flash could count to recover the wounded and keep them alive. No way would he to even think of doing anything as dishonorable as smuggling.
Other than fishing and women, Dan “Bowie” Rivera didn’t spend any money and had no financial woes. So, no reason to smuggle.
Oliver “Greenback” Shaker, the only married member, wouldn’t do anything that would take him away from his wife and new baby.
Flash had discovered by accident an assault charge against Derrick “Strong Man” Armstrong had been dropped a few months before their deployment. Could someone be blackmailing him into smuggling for them? Flash couldn’t see it. With Strong Man’s anger issues, they wouldn’t last long enough to compromise him. He’d pound them into the ground.
Brett “Cutter” Weaver was the counselor of the group. If anyone had a problem, they’d be dishing to him. In fact he’d gotten the impression Strong Man had been doing just that on the helo before the drop. He’d talk to Cutter and see if together they could figure out what was going on with Strong Man. Just in case. He’d have to be slick about it. Cutter was a vault when someone confided in him. Which was why the guys used him as a sounding board.
As he maintained a watch on the rooftop tangos and the street below, Flash resisted the urge to wipe the trail of sweat that streaked down his cheek from beneath his Boonie hat. He could understand why NCIS had approached him about this assignment. He knew all the guys in the company well, and he had gambling issues. When he was flush he was flush. And when he was down…
It made sense to choose the one team member with a history of financial ups and downs, with a history of gambling, for this undercover assignment. His apparent addiction left the impression that he could be compromised. The thought twisted his gut with anger and pain. He wasn’t addicted to gambling. He used his trips to Vegas to supplement his income, but he wasn’t addicted.
Or was he?
Hawk’s clicks sounded over the com, jerking Flash out of his reverie. The prearranged signal notified everyone on the team he’d fini
shed placing his charges and exited the building. Strong Man’s clicks sounded soon after. Flash’s attention jumped briefly to the men on the roof, then dropped again to watch the movement on the street below. He spied Doc and Bowie through the thermal scope, as they crawled out through the same window they’d entered. Their identities were verified by their clicks moments later. Where the hell was Cutter?
Minutes crept by. His muscles tightened with tension. The timers connected to the C-4 were running. They needed to get the fuck out of here. Why hadn’t Cutter checked in?
“We have a problem,” Derrick “Strong Man” Armstrong said, breaking radio silence.
For a moment those words clanged through Flash’s head like alarm bells.
Derrick cut through his reaction with, “C’s a no show, over.”
How the hell could Strong Man sound so fucking calm?
“Cutter, come in, over.” Hawk’s voice, holding much the same even tone, was met with silence.
Flash took a deep breath and homed in on one of the sentries. Had Cutter been attacked inside? Captured? No. These terrorist assholes would be going ape shit if they’d discovered him. Something else was going on. Could Cutter’s com system have screwed up?
“Last location, over?” Hawk asked.
“Ground floor. I thought he was right behind me,” Derrick replied.
“Five minutes,” Greenback’s voice came over the com.
Why the fuck had they opted to go old school with the explosives?
Because the structure of the buildings made a remote receiver unreliable. And they’d wanted to be far, far away before it went off.
“I’m going back in for him, over,” Hawk said.
Shit! Flash mouthed the word. His heartbeat cranked up, pounding in his throat, his temples.
He checked the location of the rooftop sentries.
Minutes ticked by like hours. One of the sentries called down to someone on the street and Flash eased the rifle barrel in that direction. The man on the street answered and slipped inside.
Movement to the right caught Flash’s attention and he turned just as a man slithered into the window Bowie and Doc had exited through before. The man’s Boonie hat fell off and landed on the ground beneath the window. Who the hell was it? Flash’s thermal imager only showed the man in white, without any identifying details.
Shit! Three members of the team were inside a building rigged to explode in three minutes. Jesus!
And he was sitting up here, unable to do a damn thing to help.
The sound of an MP-5 submachine gun came from inside the building, and two of the armed sentries ran toward the rooftop door. Flash sighted the lead runner and took him down. The second man paused just long enough for Flash to pick him off, too.
The other sentries took up a position at the front of the building. All hell broke loose down on the street as his team fired, lighting up their positions. The two sentries dropped behind the low brick wall bordering the roof.
Flash looked though his scope at the thermal images. A tango popped up, raised his rifle, took aim. Flash fired. The guy’s skull shattered, sending fragments into the air. The other terrorist turned to run, and Flash picked him off, too.
He swung his rifle toward the street. A man emerged from the building carrying a limp body over his shoulder. Oh, shit! It had to be Hawk and Cutter. Hawk had zigzagged only three quarters of the way across the street when the charges they’d set went off. The rumble of the detonation was a rushing train barreling straight at them, and the ground rose beneath Hawk’s feet in a wave, throwing him forward. The body he carried flew through the air and landed a few feet ahead of him at an awkward angle. The building they’d bombed leapt at least a foot in the air, then caved in on itself as the lower floors collapsed.
The roof Flash knelt on shuddered and shook as a dust cloud rose with the speed of a sandstorm, blocking his view. Rifle tucked against him, he rolled from his crouched position, grabbed his pack and raced for the stairs.
Cutter was dead. He had to be dead. He hadn’t even tried to catch himself. Nausea hit Flash’s stomach and he swallowed it back. They had to move out. And the other teammate, the one who’d climbed in through the window, was he buried in the debris? Was he dead?
Flash hit the door, and for a moment the darkness in the stairwell closed in around him. He shouldered his pack and paused to allow his eyes to adjust, his heart thundering in his ears.
He pounded down the rickety, uneven steps, his boots clattering and echoing as he went. Every terrorist within a ten-mile radius would be homing in on their position. They had to get out of here. He hit the door running, but pulled up to look out onto the street.
“Flash. What’s your position?” Hawk’s voice came over the com. He sounded out of breath.
“I’m a hundred feet east from your position.”
“Stay where you are, we’re on our way.”
The dust hadn’t yet settled on the street when four men hobbled out of the cloud, gritty sand and concrete debris painting them a ghostly gray-white. Doc supported Hawk on his left side. Strong Man had shouldered Cutter’s dead weight in a fireman’s carry, and Bowie brought up the rear, his MP-5 submachine gun at the ready. None wore a Boonie hat or helmet. Which one of them had disappeared solo into the building while Hawk searched for Cutter? And how the hell had he gotten out?
“On point, Flash,” Hawk said, cradling his MP-5 against his right side his finger hovering above the trigger.
“Movement from the east here,” Greenback said through the com from his position directly ahead, where he’d been guarding their back door.
Every nerve in Flash’s body went on high alert as they hoofed it down the street toward Greenback.
“Patrol coming at you,” Greenback announced. Flash signaled go for cover, though the men were already scattering into the dark doorways and alleys along the way.
A truck sped past. A few moments later more tangos followed on foot. Lights came on in some of the buildings surrounding them while shouts sounded from up the block.
Flash stepped out of the alleyway and hugged the shadows as he double-timed to the end of the block to scout out their position. A crowd moved up one of the side streets. He dodged into the open door of an abandoned building and thumbed his com button. “More movement coming from the side streets from the east. Drop back one block west.”
He took his own advice and circled around to the next block. A man stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk, a rifle cradled in the bend of his arm. Every muscle tensed, Flash sank back into a doorway and froze. The man jogged past him in the direction of the crowd.
They had to get out of the area right fucking now. Flash ran past the last two doorways and, sliding along the edge of the structure, slipped into the alley behind it. He signaled on the com and the team stepped out of hiding and hustled toward him. Derrick was breathing hard from carrying Cutter’s two hundred pounds plus his pack, so Bowie gave Strong Man a breather by taking Cutter, while Strong Man moved to the rear.
“We have to get off the street,” Flash said quietly. He radioed Greenback with coordinates. Two minutes later Greenback joined them.
“I’ve scouted a location where we can hole up and triage,” Greenback said. He led them through a network of dark alleys into one of the abandoned buildings. A small section of stairs leading to the second floor hung suspended by twisted metal supports, the rest having been blown away. “This way,” Greenback motioned them through a hallway to a back staircase that looked somewhat more stable. Flash climbed the stairs on point.
The building was a complex of one bedroom apartments. Flash positioned Greenback on the stairs and took Strong Man with him to do a room-to-room check of the second floor, then returned to the others.
“It’s clear,” Flash said.
Doc settled the two injured men in one of the rooms at the back of the structure. Hawk lowered himself to the floor while Bowie, with Doc’s help, laid Cutter next to him.
F
lash stood by, poised to help, as Doc broke open his pack, snapped and shook a glow stick for some light and examined Cutter. “He’s got a concussion for sure. I can feel a massive bump on the side of his head, and one of his pupils is sluggish. He may have a fractured skull. He’s not going to come round any time soon. We need to make a stretcher.”
What the hell had happened to Cutter?
Hawk used his SOG knife to split the seam of his pants and exposed a knee puffed up like a soccer ball. More bad news, as he clearly wasn’t going to be able to walk on that leg.
Since Doc and Bowie were helping the wounded, Flash said, “I’ll take care of the stretcher.” He worked his way through the rooms one by one, looking for any kind of supports he could use. Five apartments down the hall he found an old bed frame. The mattress was long gone, but the bed frame was still nailed together. He jerked the structure up, and using his SOG knife, loosened the nails enough to tear the sides free of the head and footboard. Then he jogged down the hall to the stairwell to hit up Greenback and Strong Man for their t-shirts.
Returning to the room Doc was using as a temporary ER, Flash set aside his rifle and the boards. While Bowie finished wrapping Hawk’s knee Flash scrounged the other teammates’ t-shirts and created a stretcher for Cutter. Now they needed to get the hell out of here.
“I’ve positioned Strong Man at the east corner of the building. Bowie, take a position on the west,” Flash said.
“Roger,” Bowie said and jogged from the room.
Flash reported to Hawk, “Greenback is covering the stairwell, and I’m setting up a defensive position on the roof if I can find a way up there.”
In the dull light of the glow stick, he watched Doc insert an IV into Cutter’s arm.
“As soon as Doc has Cutter stabilized we’ll move out. They’ll be expanding their search for us,” Hawk said. “And we only have an hour to make it to the extraction point.
“Roger that.”
Flash pulled a map from his pack. Now their route was compromised, they’d have to plot an alternate. Using the light of the glow stick, he and Hawk plotted a new course that might get them to the extraction coordinates in time.