Chapter 24 - Ambush at the Family Hearth
Margaret dropped behind the heavy cedar chest, curling into a ball, her whole body shaking with terror. "Claire... please... they're going to kill us..."
"Stay down," Claire said.
Her voice wasn't panicked; it was the chillingly calm voice of an apex predator stepping into its hunting ground. She pulled a tactical combat knife from her boot with her left hand, holding the Colt 1911 ready in her right.
Footsteps moved across the floor below—light, balanced, synchronized. Professional wet-work operators. They were moving in a three-man stack, clearing rooms with military precision. They had taken out the outer perimeter agents using localized EMP grenades and subsonic rounds.
A shadow crossed the narrow attic doorway.
A flash-bang grenade rolled through the opening, bouncing twice on the dusty floorboards.
Claire didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, kicked the grenade cleanly through the slatted attic air vent with the heel of her boot, and flattened herself against the wall beside the doorframe.
*BOOM!*
The flash-bang detonated outside against the exterior siding with a blinding flash and concussive roar.
Before the smoke could clear, the first operative breached the attic stairs, rifle raised at high-ready, wearing advanced night-vision quad-tubes.
Claire struck like a viper. Her left hand drove the butt of her combat knife directly into the throat of the operator, crushing his windpipe and suppressing his vocal cords before he could cry out. As he buckled, Claire grabbed the barrel of his suppressed submachine gun, wrenched it upward, and drove her elbow into his temple with a sickening crack.
The man collapsed in a heap of Kevlar and tactical nylon.
The second operator came up the stairs behind him, weapon raised. Claire didn't shoot—she used the falling body of the first man as a human shield. Two subsonic rounds tore into the dead operative's chest plate. Claire stepped from behind the shield and fired two rounds from Robert’s Colt directly into the second man's exposed jawline.
He dropped backward down the staircase like a stone.
Margaret watched from behind the chest, her eyes wide with unadulterated horror and amazement. This was not the daughter she had criticized for being quiet, detached, and solitary. This was a force of nature. Claire moved with no wasted motion, no hesitation, and zero fear. She was death incarnate.
Claire descended the attic stairs like a ghost.
On the landing of the second floor, the squad leader was already pivoting, his laser sight painting Claire’s chest. Claire didn't dive for cover; she closed the distance in a fraction of a second, slapping his rifle barrel offline just as he fired. The round splintered the doorframe beside her ear.
Claire twisted his wrist, disarming him with bone-snapping torque, and drove her knee violently into his ribs. The operator slammed into the hardwood floor. Before he could reach for his sidearm, Claire pinned his throat with her boot, the barrel of Robert's 1911 pressed squarely between his eyes.
"Who sent you?" Claire asked, her breathing barely elevated.
The operator spat blood onto the floorboards, glaring at her with venomous defiance. On the inside of his left wrist, exposed by his pulled-back combat sleeve, was a black tattoo: a constellation of seven stars crossed by an anchor.
The Orion Consortium.
"It doesn't matter, General," the operator wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "The submersible launched an hour ago from the Mariana trench station. The Vault is already being breached. Robert Hale's bloodline ends today."
Claire looked down at him with cold detachment. "You're wrong. Robert Hale’s bloodline is coming to finish what he started."
She struck him with the butt of the weapon, knocking him into unconsciousness.
Claire turned around. Margaret stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at the carnage. She looked at the bodies, the blood, and finally at Claire, who stood amid the violence like an iron pillar of judgment.
Margaret slowly sank to her knees on the attic steps, covering her face as fresh tears fell. "Forgive me, Claire... God in heaven, forgive me..."
May you like
Claire walked up the stairs, knelt beside her mother, and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing to forgive, Mom. But now you have to be strong. Lily needs you. And I have to go to war."
***
