Free The Tide: Breakwater (Tide Series Book 2) by Anthony J Melchiorri Page A

Dom clicked on his NVGs and peered into the now black-and-green landscape. Next to him, Meredith and the Hunters each wore infrared tags on their shoulders. The tags glowed a bright white when viewed through NVGs but were invisible to everyone else. The tags were commonly used by American forces to prevent friendly fire when operating in the cover of darkness.
    Through the NVGs, the vacant vehicles in the parking lot appeared like ghostly apparitions. He played his rifle across the trees. Everything remained silent despite the earlier cries they’d heard.
    Dom clicked on his comm link. “Frank, how’s my flyboy doing with the FADEC?”
    “We managed to use one of Adam’s sat link devices so Chao and Samantha could dial into our systems from the Huntress . They’re troubleshooting now.”
    “Keep your eyes on my girls for me, will you?”
    “You got it, Captain.”
    A guttural cry escaped the woods to their left. Dom and the Hunters swiveled. A Skull lunged over a fallen tree trunk. It sprinted toward them until a spray of bullets sent it sliding across the grass. Another howl sounded to their right, followed by a series of screams directly in front of them. More Skulls poured from the woods. Like the legendary hydra’s heads, each one they took down seemed to be replaced by two more.
    “Reloading,” Renee called. She jammed a fresh magazine in place and resumed firing.
    As soon as she did, Miguel yelled, “Reloading.”
    Dom took his turn, clicking a new magazine into place.
    The incoming Skulls seemed to be swarming them like someone had kicked a beehive. Dom’s thoughts turned toward Kara and Sadie, and he wondered how they were holding up. He prayed the Skulls would never reach the chopper. He squeezed the trigger and sent another skidding, dead, across the asphalt.
    Dom realized they were losing ground. There were far too many to hold back. A chorus of howls echoed across the parking lot directly behind them. Dom swallowed hard. He risked a glance over his shoulder. His NVGs lit up in bright flashes of green. A frenzied horde of Skulls scrambled across the lot to the other side of the AW109.
    “Frank,” Dom said. “I hope to God you’re about to tell me the bird’s ready to fly.”
    “That’s a negative, Captain,” Frank said. “And if these new passengers decide to climb all over the chopper, there’s a good chance we’re never getting out of here.”
    The wails of the approaching Skulls grew louder, and Dom’s pulse thumped in his ears. Hot adrenaline flooded his vessels. Next to him, his four crew members were clearly visible with their IR tags illuminated in his NVGs. The tags were completely invisible to the Skulls, but the bright flashes of white bursting from the muzzles of their rifles were not. An idea struck him, and he stopped squeezing the trigger. “Hold your fire!”

-10-
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    “W ith me!” Dom started running away from the chopper toward a picnic shelter. The others followed. When he reached the shelter, he flipped a picnic table on its side against one of the shelter’s support columns. Hector and Miguel turned over another, then Renee and Meredith shoved a third table over. It gave them a meager barricade against the Skulls.
    “Why the fuck are we running away from the chopper?” Miguel asked.
    Instead of answering, Dom squeezed the trigger and sent off several bursts into the flanks of the Skulls. The beasts swiveled and crashed into each other. Confusion riddled their ranks. Exactly what Dom had hoped.
    “This is why!” He fired again. “Open up on ‘em!”
    The other rifles chattered to life. The oncoming Skulls switched their attention to the muzzle flashes. Howls and calls rending the air anew, the beasts scrambled toward the picnic shelter where Dom and the Hunters had set their firing position. The tide of Skulls shifted away from the chopper.
    “What’s going on?” Adam’s voice broke over the comm link.
    “They hunt based on sound and