The realisation that Lucky Vega was probably at his house with every intention of killing Candy, almost paralysed Tuck with equal parts fear and guilt.
Fear because with a house full of women to protect, even with the phenomenal skills she possessed, Candy stood no chance against Lucky and however many cartel lieutenants she’d taken with her.
Guilt because he should have guessed what Lucky might have been planning. He’d missed the obvious, and now Candy was going to pay the price.
Only the noise of the helicopter rotors overhead, brought him out of the trance he’d slipped into.
He put his hand to his eyes to shield them from the down-draft, and looked up to see a helicopter flying overhead, the sight of the Marines sitting in the doorway more welcome than he could have imagined.
He turned and grabbed Danny by the arm.
“C’mon!” He started to run.
Danny didn’t need telling twice, and it didn’t take the rest of the Alpha Stalwart team more than a split-second to catch on to Tuck’s intention.
They raced across the lawn to the far side of what was left of the house, heads kept low as the chopper came in to land almost on top of them.
“Howdy boys!” Hollywood’s accent was unmistakable. “What’s your rush?”
Tuck glanced up to see Alex’s team-mates, Hollywood and Kellen Davis sitting in the door of the chopper.
“The cartel is going after Candy at my house. You need to get us there right now!” He yelled, over the noise of the engine.
Hollywood glanced around at his fellow marines.
“We’ve got room for four people.” He confirmed.
“Then you’d better make room for another four, Marine.” Tuck instructed, knowing only too well that he had no authority here.
Hollywood’s eyes narrowed before he turned back to his men.
“You four, see what you can do to help here.” He pointed towards the house. “It looks like a rescue mission is needed. Do what you can to help, and we’ll pick you up on the return trip.”
Tuck watched the men reluctantly disembark, and then he and the rest of the team climbed on board the chopper. He immediately leaned over to the pilot to give him the co-ordinates for his house.
“Get us there as fast as you can.” He yelled, relieved when the pilot grinned and nodded, before turning his attention back to the controls.
Tuck sat down facing his team-mates and strapped himself in, pulling on a headset. Danny was opposite him, and he could see the exact same fear on the younger man’s face, knowing that Hannah and Candy were together at the house.
It was only when he spotted Charlie anxiously trying to see through the door to what lay below them, that he remembered that Joel was at the house too, with the Mazur sisters.
Tuck closed his eyes momentarily, not wanting his friends to see the despair he was feeling.
The Widow-maker and her men were going to attack his house, the only occupants of which were five women and a child with Down Syndrome.
Heaven help them!
“Two minutes out.” The pilot’s voice came over the headset.
“Check your ammo and reload.” JT instructed everyone. “We don’t know how many of them will be at the house.”
Tuck pulled the magazine out of the rifle and checked it, before re-inserting it and checking his sidearm. He was going through the motions, doing things he’d done ten thousand times while still in uniform, using the familiar repetition as a soothing way of helping him keep his breath slow and regular.
He’d never felt this close to panic while he was in uniform. Never felt so close to losing his shit so completely, his men would have to sit on him to keep him from freaking out.
Every few breaths, his mind would wander, and Candy’s smiling face would appear, and his breathing would quicken as a feeling of despair threatened to choke him.
“Tuck?” JT kicked his boot to get his attention.
Tuck’s eyes shot open.
“Thirty seconds.” JT nodded towards the front of the chopper.
Tuck turned his head to look forward and before his eyes, his house and gardens came into view, looking as they always did, welcoming and tranquil.
The only thing that spoiled the familiar view was the helicopter sitting on the lawn, it’s rotors turning, taking chunks out of the longest branches on his trees.
“There!” He pointed towards the chopper. “She’s still there.”
Every man aboard the Marine helicopter was craning his neck trying to see what Tuck was looking at.
“Are you sure that’s her helicopter?” JT asked, probably already realising how pointless the question was.
“Blast it!” Danny growled. “Go on! Blow the fucking thing to kingdom come!”
The co-pilot turned and stared at Danny in surprise.
“Sir, we can’t just fire on a civilian aircraft.” He pointed out.
“They’re fucking drug smugglers and murderers!” Danny snarled in the guy’s face.
“It doesn’t matter who they are, sir. Unless we’re being fired upon, we can’t fire at them.” The poor co-pilot was amazingly strong in standing up to Danny, who was one step short of turning into a rabid dog.
“Stand down, Danny.” Marcus put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ll get them before they can get back on that chopper.”
“Put us down on the driveway.” Tuck pointed. “That will make it harder for their chopper to take off, with the trees behind.”
“Land with your weapons pointed straight at that fucker!” Danny grunted. “Because the chances of them not firing on you are slim to fucking nil!”
“Aye, sir.” The pilot smiled, manoeuvring the chopper around.
Tuck watched the ground come closer at an excruciatingly slow pace. For ten cents, he would have thrown out a line and roped down.
When they were about fifty feet off the ground, the front door of his house flew open, and he watched two men and a woman run out.
“Is that the cartel woman?” Hollywood pointed to the house.
Tuck spun around trying to get a better view, but having told the pilot which way to face, they were currently pointing the wrong direction for him to see anything.
“They’re heading for the chopper!” Danny yelled. “Get us the fuck down so we can stop them!”
“I can’t set us down any faster, sir!” The pilot yelled. “If we hit the ground too fast, this chopper won’t bounce!”
Danny scrambled out of his harness and pushed his way to the door. He grabbed the handle, and Tuck watched him pull with his whole weight, sliding it back.
The noise inside the chopper increased as the wind rushed in, but Danny was on a mission.
“Grab my belt!” He yelled at Marcus, as he raised his rifle to his shoulder.
Both Marcus and Zach grabbed hold of Danny by the belt on his pants, and with one foot braced against the seats, he leaned out of the helicopter, much further than was probably good for his health.
As the pilot turned them slightly, the three escapees on the ground came into sight, and Danny let off a volley of bullets.
Tuck could barely see them from his viewpoint.
“Turn slightly to give him a better view.” He instructed, and this time the pilot turned them about forty-five degrees.
Danny started firing again, and this time he managed to hit one of the men.
The bullet must have caught the guy in the shoulder though, because he spun off and hit the ground, but was up running again two seconds later, less than fifty metres from their own helicopter.
The woman wasn’t exactly dressed for sprinting across grass, but she was keeping up with her men.
As the helicopter completed it’s turn, Danny pulled the trigger and fired again. This time the other man was hit in the leg, and he fell to the ground. Danny kept firing, but it was difficult to stay steady when he was leaning out at a precarious angle, and their own chopper was dropping by the second.
The two injured guys helped each other towards the helicopter, but the woman wasn’t hanging around.
She hurled herself at the chopper, diving inside to avoid the bullets coming from Danny’s rifle.
Five seconds later she was leaning back out of the door, a huge grin on her face, and what looked like a fifty-calibre gun propped on a swing arm.
“Incoming!” Danny yelled, and in harmony, Zach and Marcus pulled him in as Brandon slid the door shut.
The rat-a-tat of bullets hitting the fuselage was unmistakable.
“Now can you blast them?” JT yelled at the pilot.
“With pleasure.” The pilot nodded to his co-pilot as he swung the chopper around, throwing his passengers off their feet.
Just as the bullets from Lucky’s gun started hitting the glass, Tuck felt the jolt as the co-pilot started returning fire.
After a few seconds the incoming fire stopped altogether, and within five seconds of that, there was an explosion that was almost as deafening as it was bright.
Tuck flew backwards as the sonic wave from the blast hit their chopper, and it was only thanks to Brandon blocking him that his thick skull wasn’t cracked wide open on the door.
The pilot skilfully managed to keep them in the air, and no sooner they were level again, they were descending to the ground.
Twenty seconds later they were down, and Hollywood had the door open.
“Make sure none of them are still alive!” Tuck barked at the Marines. “We’ll take the house.”
He charged towards the house, his men alongside him, with the exception of Danny who was already ten feet in front of him.
The flash of colour in the windows seemed strangely out of place, for the split second it took him to recognise it for what it was.
The windows seemed to explode outwards long before the sound reached them, and way before any of them had the wits to stop, turn tail and run.
Not that any of them would have run, even if they had the opportunity, not with the women trapped inside.
After the first rumble threw them backwards, they were pinned to the ground, as explosion after explosion blew whole sections of the front wall outwards, and masonry rained down on them.
Tuck curled in a ball to avoid being hit by the worst of the debris, but just as it seemed they were coming to an end, there was a huge explosion as though half a dozen devices had gone off at once.
What was left of the front of the house blew out, part of the roof exploded, and a fireball leapt fifty feet in the air.
Within seconds, flames burst out of gaps that had once been windows, and the ground around them was littered with what was left of his dining room furniture.
As the dust settled, and the noise faded away, Tuck lifted his head to see what was left of his house blazing away, with flames coming from virtually every side.
“Candy!” He gasped, trying to get to his feet.
“Hannah!” Danny yelled, scrambling towards the house on his knees, a huge gash on his head leaving blood trailing down his face.
“Sara!” Marcus’ scream held every bit of the pain Tuck was feeling, watching the wreck of his house burn fiercely in front of him.
“I’ve got to get Candy out.” He gasped, trying to get his legs to hold him up.
Arms around him held him back.
“There’s no way in.” JT’s voice was urgent. “There’s nowhere that’s not burning, and we don’t even know where they are.”
Charlie got to his feet and started running around the building, looking for access points.
“Joel!” He yelled, over and over. “Joel, can you hear me buddy?”
He eventually ran beyond where they could see him, but they could still hear him yelling.
Tuck collapsed to the floor, realising that there was nothing they could do. The house was too badly damaged for anyone to have survived the explosions, and with the fire blocking any chance of a rescue…
He stared at the house helplessly, watching Marcus pace back and forth, his hands seeming to be pulling chunks of hair out of his scalp.
Zach was standing between Marcus and a suicidal attempt to run inside anyway.
“Don’t try it.” He heard his nephew saying quietly to one of his closest friends. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s beyond all of us now.”
“She could be alive!” Marcus screamed, his pain echoing every agony Tuck was feeling right then.
Eventually Marcus fell to his knees and just stared at the property helplessly.
They all knew there was nothing that could be done, but the instinct to charge in and rescue their loved ones was eating at their very souls.
Charlie reappeared from the far side of the building looking like a beaten man. He caught Tuck’s eye and shook his head slowly.
“They must have planted charges throughout the house.” He said slowly. “It’s all gone.”
Tuck nodded as JT sat beside him. His friend couldn’t have looked more grief-stricken if it’d been his own wife in the house.
Danny climbed to his feet finally, picking up his rifle. He turned to where the helicopter was burning on Tuck’s lawn.
Walking, or more accurately staggering towards it, he raised his rifle and aimed.
“Danny, they’re all dead inside.” Hollywood confirmed, his face grim. “There’s nothing left to do here. It’s finished.”
Danny stopped thirty feet away and started firing. It didn’t seem to matter that there was nothing to aim at, the sounds of the bullets hitting metal was the only thing he seemed to need to hear.
When he eventually heard the click of the empty magazine, Danny lowered his rifle and dropped it tiredly on the ground.
“Now it’s finished.” He growled, turning and heading back to the team.