Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

loved ones. Others frantically ran in every direction, stumbling over the sand and falling to the ground, only to be trampled by others attempting to get away.

“There!” I heard Walter yell as he lifted his gun toward the boardwalk. I followed his line of sight and found what he was looking at. Three men were standing just about a hundred yards away by the boardwalk, their own guns held aloft and pointed directly at us.

“Get down!” I yelled the moment I recognized the murderous intent in their eyes. I managed to throw myself onto the sand just as one of them pulled the trigger again. A woman who just happened to run into the path of the bullet let out a short, surprised yelp of pain before falling to the ground.

“Cover me,” Olivia suddenly yelled before slipping into the crowd.

“What?” I called, but she was already gone.

I rolled into a crouch and lifted my own gun, but there were too many people between us for me to get a good shot.

Walter, on the other hand, didn’t seem to share my concerns. He fired off two shots at the men, narrowly missing a young couple who happened to be running by them as he did.

“What are you doing?” I roared at him. “You’re going to hit a civilian!”

“What am I supposed to do?” he yelled back. “We’re sitting ducks!”

He wasn’t wrong. There was nothing around for us to take cover behind, and the men obviously didn’t have any qualms about killing any of the random bystanders who happened to be running by. Holm stood just to my left, his gun clutched in his hand. It looked like he was also struggling to find an opening to shoot.

I was just about to suggest that we run, if only to lead the men away from the innocent crowd, when I realized I’d lost my visual on Olivia.

I looked around for her frantically, horrified at the idea that she might have been shot in the few seconds my focus had been elsewhere. Then I suddenly spotted her, quickly weaving her way through the crowd as she circled around to catch the men from behind.

“Get ready!” I muttered to Holm, who was still taking cover on the ground. “I think Olivia’s about to give us an opening.”

Just as I finished speaking, one of the men fell forward with a pained grunt. Standing just behind him was Olivia, her gun pointed straight at where the fallen man had just been standing.

The two other men turned toward their fallen comrade in shock, and I took the opportunity to move in. I sprinted straight for the second man, who turned around just as I made it within punching distance of him. He moved to lift his gun, but he was too late, and my fist smashed into his nose with a satisfying crunch.

Holm had already moved in on the first man who had fallen to the ground, and Walter was going after the third. As for the man I was currently fighting with, he had dropped his gun when I’d punched him, and he was currently attempting to hit me back.

I raised my arm to block his blow, but he surprised me when he suddenly switched tack and hit me in the side instead. This guy clearly knew a thing or two about fighting, then.

Nevertheless, I could tell that his movements were unpolished and sloppy.

He was definitely strong, though. I could tell that much just from the force behind his punches. He was fast too, and it was all I could do to block his punches as he continued to rain them down on me.

Still, I was a former SEAL. I had years of martial arts and close-combat training under my belt. Regardless of how strong this guy was, it would be embarrassing if I lost to a street fighter who didn’t know how to pace himself.

Just as I’d suspected, after just a minute or so of launching non-stop punches at me at full force, his blows became weaker. This was my chance.

I dodged his punch and hit him hard in the stomach. He wheezed as the blow knocked the wind out of him. I didn’t give him a chance to recover and quickly swept his legs out from under him with a harsh kick to the back of his knees.

He yelped as he suddenly fell backward onto the concrete boardwalk.

He groaned as his head struck the ground, and I wasted no time shoving him onto his stomach and twisting his arms behind his back.

I made quick work of getting him cuffed and then turned to see how my partner was faring. Holm was bent over the guy that Olivia had shot and was taking his pulse. The guy was completely still, and the surrounding sand was quickly staining red. I could tell even from this distance that Holm wasn’t about to get a pulse off of him.

Just as I was about the check on Walter, I heard another gunshot.

I snapped my head around to find the source of the sound, just in time to catch sight of Walter falling to the ground, the man he’d been grappling with taking off a sprint away from the beach and toward the town.

“Dammit!” I yelled as I got to my feet and hurried to Walter’s side as quickly as I could manage on the uneven sand.

“I’ll call for help!” Olivia yelled somewhere behind me.

“I’m sorry,” Walter huffed as I fell to a crouch beside him. He had one hand pressed tightly against his side, and he was struggling to draw breath. “I disarmed him, but he had another gun. Rookie mistake. Didn’t even realize it until he’d already shot me.”

“Just take it easy,” I cautioned him. “Olivia’s calling for help now. We’re going to get you some help.”

He looked ashen, and his hands were beginning to tremble, so I helped him keep pressure on the wound by placing my own hands over his.

Now that I wasn’t hyper-focused on my own