Chapter 67 - The Mother's Final Execution
The deafening boom of the twelve-gauge shell shattered the howling roar of the blizzard.
The reinforced Kevlar tire of the Maybach exploded in a cloud of shredded rubber and sparking rims. The heavy luxury sedan lurched violently to the left, slamming against the rusted guardrail directly above the one-thousand-foot drop.
"Sniper!" one of Catherine's private contractors screamed, spinning around with an MPX submachine gun raised.
Catherine Vance didn't even duck. With mechanical, terrifying precision, she shifted her aim from Anthony to the guardrail, then pulled the trigger twice into Anthony’s right knee.
A sickening scream tore from Anthony's throat as the hollow-point rounds shattered his patella. He collapsed onto the frostbitten steel grate of the bridge, his cane tumbling over the edge, swallowed instantly by the black void below. He reached out with bloody fingers, clawing at his mother's boots. "Mother... please..."
"Discarded assets do not beg," Catherine whispered. She kicked his bleeding hand away and turned toward the open rear door of the Maybach.
*01:34... 01:33...*
"Khloe, stay behind the concrete abutment!" I roared, racking another shell into the chamber.
"I'm not staying behind while they kill our child!" she yelled back. She strapped Grace securely into the chest sling beneath her tactical vest, pulled the Glock 19 from her holster with her right hand, and broke into a dead sprint across the ice-slick steel.
Gunfire erupted instantly. Catherine's two private security contractors opened fire, their suppressors chattering like demonic sewing machines. Nine-millimeter rounds sparkled against the suspension cables, chewing through steel and spitting hot lead into the snowdrifts around us.
I lunged out from behind the anchor block, firing three rapid blasts from the shotgun. The heavy double-ought buckshot caught the first contractor squarely in the chest plate, hurling him backward over the hood of the Maybach. He didn't rise.
The second contractor pivoted toward Khloe, his submachine gun tracking her silhouette.
Khloe didn't hesitate. She dropped to one knee on the frozen metal, braced her shooting arm, and fired three controlled double-taps. The contractor's visor shattered in a spray of crimson, and his body slumped lifelessly against the driver-side door.
"Anthony!" Khloe screamed as she approached the Maybach, her breath rising in violent white plumes.
Anthony was dragging himself across the icy bridge toward the rear seat where the incubator sat. Blood poured from his shattered knee, painting a ghastly trail across the snow. His fingers hooked onto the lower doorframe. "The... the bypass..." he gasped, spitting blood onto the ice. "The timer... she synced it to her phone..."
Catherine was already ten yards ahead, sprinting toward a black Eurocopter that had just crested the lip of the canyon, its rotor blades beating the freezing air into a blinding vortex of powdered ice.
*00:52... 00:51...*
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"Mark, get the baby!" Khloe shrieked, aiming her Glock at Catherine's retreating figure through the blinding downdraft of the helicopter. "Get our boy!"
***
