Chapter 4
743 Words
The night sea was a writhing sheet of black steel under a moon smudged by storm clouds. The Portuguese coast had long vanished behind them, swallowed by fog and distance. Ahead, the faint outline of the fleeing Armenian yacht cut across the dark like a pale ghost.
Inside the gunboat, men shouted over the howling wind, over the engine rattling like loose bones, over the thunder of bullets cracking past their heads.
“Kyle! They’re pinning us down! We can’t get closer!” Sergeant Basso yelled, ducking as a shell tore a fist-sized hole through the railing.
Kyle Rhodes didn’t duck. He stood braced in the spray, expression unreadable, jaw tight, eyes cold. The kind of cold that didn’t come from fear but from a man who had been empty long before the world ever tried to break him.
“Those civilians won't survive five more minutes,” Basso said. “We keep pushing and this boat’s a coffin.”
Kyle scanned the sea. At least four enemy speedboats swarmed around the main yacht, firing in disciplined bursts. These weren’t amateurs. Someone had financed them well. Someone powerful.
“Fall back,” Kyle said quietly.
The crew froze.
“Fall back?” Basso repeated. “Kyle, with all due respect—”
Kyle grabbed a K-79 grenade launcher from the rack, slung an Uzi over his back, and tightened his harness. “You heard me.”
“Sir—”
“Fall. Back.”
He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.
Basso looked at him. Kyle’s eyes had gone distant—the way they did when he was about to do something that made no sense to sane men, but perfect sense to him.
“Ah hell,” Basso muttered. “You’re going alone.”
Kyle tapped his own forehead with two fingers — the strange little gesture he only ever made when fully centered, fully calm.
“Exactly.”
Before anyone could physically restrain him, Kyle vaulted over the side of the gunboat. The sea swallowed him with a cold slap. He surfaced behind the smaller emergency craft hooked to the stern, unlatched it with a single yank, and gunned the engine.
“Rhodes! Get back here!” someone shouted.
Kyle didn’t answer.
Spray slashed against his face as he sped directly into enemy fire. Tracers streaked by like burning needles. One clipped the side of his speedboat and sent up a shower of sparks.
He only gripped the throttle harder.
Two Armenian speedboats broke formation to intercept him.
“Come on,” Kyle growled under his breath. “Come closer.”
They did.
He lifted the K-79, braced it on his knee, and fired at the first boat. The grenade hit the engine, blossoming into orange bloom. The boat lifted, split, and vanished into steam.
The second boat swerved wildly, sending two gunmen flying into the waves.
Kyle shot them both before they resurfaced.
He shot the pilot next.
As the speedboat began to turn in a circling death spiral, Kyle angled his own vessel to the side and jumped aboard the enemy’s sinking craft.
It dipped violently. Kyle used the tilt to launch himself upward—hands catching the lower rungs of the yacht’s metal ladder.
Gunfire rained down. Bullets pinged off the railings.
Kyle climbed anyway.
He vaulted over the rail and immediately rolled behind a lounge chair as a volley shredded it to ribbons. Two men rushed him with machetes—stupid choice.
Kyle fired the Uzi in a tight controlled burst. Both dropped.
He moved quickly, almost soundlessly, down the open deck corridor. Another guard stepped out with a shotgun. Kyle ducked behind a pillar as the blast shook the entire walkway.
“Stand down!” Kyle shouted. “You’re outnumbered!”
The guard laughed a wet, nervous laugh. “You’re alone!”
Kyle stepped out, fired once, and the man slumped like cut rope.
“If I’m alone,” Kyle muttered, “you should be more worried.”
He found the lower stairwell and descended into the belly of the yacht.
Every step, every corner, every breath felt like the world narrowing into a single point—like violence was the language he was born fluent in.
The door to the main cabin was steel-reinforced. Someone inside shouted in Armenian. Someone else screamed.
Kyle took a breath, cracked his knuckles, and tried the handle.
Locked.
He kicked.
The frame splintered.
The second kick blew it inward.
- Writer
