Page 56 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

They stood in 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.

False.

Everything here was false .

His gaze swept over the crates again. Too uniform. Too untouched. Like props. Like camouflage.

His boots thudded over to the far wall, passing a line of pallets and forklift tire marks. He stopped at a smooth, whitewashed section, out of place amid the chipped cinderblock surrounding it.

Something was off.

He stepped back. Shifted his weight. Knocked the butt of his rifle against the wall.

Hollow.

Boomer stared at it for half a beat. Then wound up and slammed the stock into it, once, twice, until the panel buckled and cracked.

The drywall gave way, and from the rupture came a cascade , soft, heavy, endless.

Money.

Stacks of it. Band after band of crisp currency spilling out. Black-banded bricks sliding over one another. Unmarked, packed into hidden shelves that most likely ran the entire length of the building. Layer after layer of crisp, perfect bills.

“Holy shit,” Hazard muttered behind him.

Preacher came over, eyes going wide. “How much?”

Boomer looked at the space, at the depth, the height, the way the false walls probably ran all the way around the perimeter, but it was the boy genius who answered.

“From the view in my scope, the size of the warehouse, billions.” Breakneck exhaled through comms. “Well, shit.”

Boomer stepped back, staring at the breach, heart pounding now not with adrenaline but with understanding. “It’s not a lab,” he said flatly. “It’s the stash house.”

A vault , built into a warehouse. A camouflaged warehouse no one defended, hiding in plain sight.

Breakneck’s voice shouted through the comms. “Movement on the perimeter. Armed, black tacticals, autos, precise, heading your way. You’re in their kill zone. Get off the fucking X.”

“Move,” Iceman ordered, and they all ran for the opening in front of them.

Gunfire cracked the moment they moved from inside the building.

“Engaging,” Breakneck said. “Take cover to your right. Concrete wall. Vehicles.”

Breakneck’s fire pinned the forward-moving tangos, dropping several before they realized they were caught in a sniper’s scope.

Gunfire cracked like thunder.

The warehouse lit with muzzle flashes as the first wave of attackers opened up, precision, autos, black tacticals spilling into the perimeter like a dark tide.

Boomer dove right, shoulder slamming behind the thick concrete column, weapon up.

“Engaging,” Breakneck called over comms, rounds already slicing from his sniper perch. “Forward tangos pinned. Taking them as they stack.”

Rounds pinged off steel. The entire structure shuddered with ricochets.

Boomer fired three controlled bursts, took down two targets near the gate.

Then Taylor’s voice slammed through the comms, sharp, frantic, raw.

“TOC is under attack! Intel suggests multiple targets—HQ, your position!” More shots cracked across the open concrete.

“Boomer!” Her voice trembled. “No time to explain why, but my family is in danger. Please…go to them. Save them.”

Boomer’s breath caught in his throat. His trigger finger froze mid-squeeze. He keyed up. “But—you?—”

“I can take care of myself,” she snapped, but her voice wavered. “Ansel—” It broke. Just like that. “My mom and dad are helpless. Please.”

That one word, please , split something open in his chest.

Every face around him turned, jaws tight, expressions grim. They all felt it—what lived inside Boomer. Innocents in danger.That was the line none of them would ever ignore. It wasn’t just duty.It wasn’t orders or mission parameters.

It was tied to their humanity, a sacred instinct to stand between darkness and the defenseless. To be the warrior who met evil head-on. Who dealt death to protect life. To shield what was precious .

It was something older. Truer. A fire in their bones that said not on our watch.

Every man there wanted to go.

Iceman didn’t pause. Didn’t blink. His boss was the kind of leader who thought fast and strategically on the fly. “Lockhart,” he barked. “You, two of your guys. Skull and Bones. You’re going to HQ.” He looked up toward the sniper nest. “Break, get your ass down here. You’re with Lockhart.”

“Copy that, boss. On my way,” Break answered, already moving.

Iceman turned to Hazard. “You, GQ, and you two.” He motioned to two SBS operators.

“Secure this warehouse. Eliminate any stragglers. If they send reinforcements, I want this place held. We’ll send more people your way.

” He slammed a fresh mag home, chambered it with a sharp snick .

“Preacher. Kodiak. Juggernaut”—he tagged the last SBS guy—“you’re with me.

We hit TOC hard and fast.” Then Iceman turned to Boomer.

Grabbed his vest. Locked eyes. “You get your ass to Taylor’s family. Do whatever it takes.”

Boomer nodded, already shifting into motion, but Bash’s voice cut in.

“I’m going with him.” No hesitation. Just grit.

Iceman held his stare for one beat, then nodded. “I thought you’d say that. Move your asses.”

Breakneck moved like smoke. He dropped from the third-story fire escape as the first volley of shots rang out near the HQ’s main entrance, short, brutal bursts. Suppressed. Tactical. They weren’t dealing with run-of-the-mill mercs. These guys were former Spetsnaz . He’d bet his life on it.

The bastards were already inside.

“Lockhart,” he called through comms. “They’re in the west wing. Second floor. Moving fast.”

“Copy. We’re breaching north stairwell now.”

Break’s boots barely touched the ground before he was sprinting across the rear lot, rifle raised, pulse low. The back door was still cracked. Entry point confirmed.

He didn’t wait.

The hallway inside was dim and hot, lined with blown light fixtures and the stink of cordite and synthetic fibers burning. Screams echoed deeper in, short, panicked. Civilian. Staff.

He ran toward the screams.

One target came around the corner in full black tactical. Break dropped him with a suppressed shot to the head, and another one to make it final. No hesitation.

He pushed forward, clearing rooms, his mind operating on two tracks: kill the intruders, find the non-combatants. One hand took lives. The other protected them. That was the line he never crossed.

Two liaisons were pinned behind an overturned desk in the communications suite. One bleeding from a thigh wound, the other clutching a radio like it was holy.

“Go,” he told them. “Follow the wall. Don’t stop. You’ve got ten seconds of me.”

They went and he covered, laying down suppressive fire that made the hallway a death corridor for anything that moved.

Then he was on the stairs, taking them two at a time, shouldering through smoke and the buzz of fire alarms. He heard shouting on the second floor, glass breaking, then the unmistakable thud of someone hitting a wall.

He reached the top landing. The conference room. Frosted glass walls framing the room. He could see blurred movement, figures huddled inside. Four people, unarmed, pressed against the far side. A door slammed open from the other entrance.

Break didn’t stop. He kicked the door open, fired two shots mid-stride, but when a third entered, his rifle clicked empty. Like a gunslinger at twelve o’clock high, he drew his sidearm in a blast of speed, took him out with a perfect zero head shot.