Page 110 of Boomer
Taylor bolted from her chair.Ansel. Her parents. The liaisons and their families. The entire MAOC chain of command.Everyone.
They would all betargets,and then the world exploded. The sound tore through her before her body could catch up, metal shrieking, stone cracking, the gate blown clean off its hinges. She staggered to her feet, head spinning.
The last thought before darkness tilted into motion was that she had to save her family, and there was only one man she could trust.
18
They stoodin a tight stack outside the warehouse entrance, the night pressing in humid and still.
Boomer adjusted his grip on the charge, eyes on the frame, but for half a second his mind drifted to Taylor’s voice, taut with anxiety, the softness she tried to hide while in command, and the shape of her mouth when she was about to argue. Or kiss him. Or both.
Focus. He shoved the thought down and set the charge.
“A walk in the park has been more exciting than this,” Bash muttered behind him.
“Yeah, yawn-fest,” Breakneck replied, his voice dry over comms from his sniper nest across the street.
“What do you think, Boomer?”
“Boomer?” GQ asked. “What happened to Southern fried?”
“Got old,” Bash said.
Boomer chuckled. “Is that a dig at my age, Bashie?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ice snapped. “Heads on a swivel and your focus as tight as a miser’s asshole.”
Skull sniggered quietly, the sound brief.
His hand moved steadily, securing the charge at the warehouse’s front seam. Metal frame. Reinforced door. No windows. A perfect lie.
He remembered Forge back in the UK recovering from that round through the shoulder. He missed his breaching buddy. “Charge set,” he murmured into comms. “Backblast clear.”
“Clear,” came the chorus behind him.
“Breach in three… two…”
One.
The wall of the warehouse erupted with a low, concussive roar. The door didn’t just give, it folded, the hinges tearing sideways like peeled steel. Dust and plaster exploded into the night.
Boomer went in first, rifle high, direct action in his bones.
“Overwatch has your backs,” Break’s voice came through comms, calm and clipped. “No heat signatures. A dry hole?”
Boomer stalked through the structure, rifle tucked tight to his shoulder, every sense stretched thin. The warehouse was massive, half a football field wide and stretching long into darkness, lit only by shafts of moonlight slanting through clerestory windows.
They moved with precision, two freshly rotated-in SBS operators folded seamlessly into the flow, his team and theirs gliding together in practiced motion, knees bent, muzzles up, CQC on their minds, fingers feathering their triggers.
Several seconds later, “Clear,” rang out from all corners of the warehouse.
“The walk continues. What gives?” Bash asked
Boomer relaxed his stance. Nothing but silence. A vast hollow. Broken crates, loose shrink-wrap, foam peanuts, and discarded boxes were everywhere. No heat signatures. No guards. No detonator guy.
Boomer slowed. His boots echoed faintly against smooth concrete, the silence unnerving. The space was dusty, abandoned. Undisturbed.
He paused at the center of the floor, turning in a slow, tight circle. Every hair on the back of his neck and his arms were standing at attention.
