Chapter 11 - THE PRICE OF A STAR
The impact killed the tugboat’s steering. The vessel rolled hard to port, wallowing in the freezing trough of the waves.
Vance brought our fireboat alongside with magnificent seamanship, matching the roll and pitch of the two hulls as they slammed together with a sickening crunch of steel and rubber fenders.
“Jackson! Keep the spot on them!” I shouted, unhooking my harness.
I drew my sidearm, timed the heave of the swell, and leaped across the four-foot gap of churning, black water between the two vessels.
My boots hit the tug’s ice-slick deck. I slipped, caught the steel railing with my left arm, muscles tearing with the strain, and pulled myself upright.
A mercenary burst from the aft hatch, leveling a 12-gauge shotgun.
I didn't wait for him to aim. I lunged forward, deflected the barrel into the deck plating as it fired—the blast gouging a hole through the wood decking—and drove my elbow hard into his jaw. He folded, tumbling backward down the iron companionway into the flooded hold.
I kicked open the cabin door.
Inside, knee-deep in freezing lake water, stood the tug’s captain—a massive, bearded man clutching an iron pipe wrench with both hands.
Behind him, curled on a narrow steel bunk bolted to the bulkhead, was my son.
Lucas was shivering uncontrollably, his skin the color of skim milk, his lips blue. But his eyes—those fierce, stubborn hazel eyes—were wide open.
“Dad?” he croaked, barely louder than a whisper.
The captain raised the heavy wrench. “Take one more step, General, and I swear to God I’ll crack his—”
I closed the distance in half a second.
I didn't use a weapon. I took the blow from the wrench across my left shoulder—the steel crunching against my collarbone with blinding, nauseating pain—and drove my right fist straight into the center of the man's throat.
The captain gasped, dropped the wrench, and collapsed into the swirling water at my feet.
The room fell silent, save for the thumping of the hull against the waves and the scream of the wind outside.
I dropped to my knees in the freezing water. The excruciating ache in my fractured collarbone vanished. The medals, the stars, the twenty years of military hierarchy, the classified secrets, the ruined career—everything was stripped away until only the core of my existence remained.
I reached out and gathered Lucas into my arms.
He weighed almost nothing. His body felt like a bird trapped in ice. But the moment my arms locked around his back, he buried his face into the hollow of my neck, his small, freezing hands gripping the collar of my torn uniform with a strength that defied death itself.
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“I left the stones, Dad,” he wept, hot tears burning against my freezing skin. “I left the white stones like the rabbit. Did you find them?”
“I found them, Luke,” I choked out, tears finally breaking past my discipline, washing clean channels through the salt and grime on my cheeks. “I found you. Daddy’s here. Daddy’s got you.”
