Chapter 19 - Blood and Legacy
The helicopter blades of an unmarked Black Hawk beat the rain-soaked air above the estate, descending toward the pool terrace like a giant mechanical vulture. A winch cable dropped from the open cargo bay.
The last standing mercenary, bleeding from his shoulder, lunged out from behind the waterfall. He didn't fire at Charles or Emily; he threw a tear-gas canister directly at Emily's feet, blinding her, and kicked the hydraulic jack into maximum overdrive.
With a deafening screech of warping steel, the panic room door popped open three inches.
The mercenary jammed his arm inside, grabbed Lily by her yellow sweater, and dragged her out into the blinding rain beside the pool.
"GRANDPA!" Lily screamed, flailing her arms, kicking wildly.
Charles ran forward, but his seventy-five-year-old legs could not match the speed of a professional operative. The mercenary dragged the screaming girl toward the winch cable at the edge of the pool—the very same pool where Ethan had held her above the water one year ago.
"Stop!" Emily choked through the thick, burning cloud of tear gas, stumbling forward, her gun empty, the slide locked back. "Take me! Take me instead!"
The mercenary smiled through his balaclava, securing the carabiner around Lily’s waist. "The Voronin bloodline returns home, Mrs. Mercer. Your bloodline stays in the dirt."
Just as the winch began to pull Lily into the air, Charles Whitmore did something that defied all logic.
He did not aim a weapon. He did not call for Vance.
He threw his entire body forward, diving directly into the deep end of the pool, grabbing the submerged power cables of the high-voltage underwater lighting system that had been shattered during the initial grenade blast.
With his bare, bleeding hands, Charles ripped the heavy, five-hundred-volt underwater transformer cable straight out of its sealed copper housing.
"LET GO OF MY GRANDDAUGHTER!" Charles bellowed from the water.
He jammed the exposed, sparking cable directly into the metal frame of the pool's decorative bronze railing—the very railing the mercenary was standing on with wet combat boots.
A blinding arc of blue electrical fire erupted across the pool deck with the roar of a thunderbolt.
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The mercenary’s entire body went rigid, his nervous system overwhelmed by thousands of volts of raw current. He released the cable, his eyes rolling back into his head, and collapsed backward into the churning, electrified water.
Emily lunged forward, catching Lily by her sweater just as the winch cable snapped under the tension, pulling the little girl onto the dry concrete safety of the patio.
