Chapter 83 - Blood in the Shadows
Three black tactical SUVs were parked in a staggered blockade across the mouth of the bridge spanning the Blackwood River gorge. Their floodlights poured across the rusted steel girders, illuminating four heavily armed men dressed in sterile gray combat gear, assault rifles raised at the ready.
There was no turning back. Behind me, the second drone tracked our every move, and the road behind had collapsed into a ravine.
I brought the rover to a halt eighty yards from the bridge, letting the engine idle in the shadows. I reached back, carefully unclipping Noah’s carrier. I strapped him against my chest using the tactical kangaroo sling, securing his head against my collarbone, wrapping my heavy Kevlar-lined coat around both of us to shield him from cold and debris.
"Stay quiet, sweet boy," I whispered against his soft hair. "Just a few more minutes."
I took Julian’s silenced tactical sidearm from my holster and checked the chamber. Sixteen rounds.
Instead of trying to ram through three armored trucks, I wedged a heavy wrench against the rover’s accelerator, clicked the transmission into drive, and rolled out of the driver’s side into the ditch as the empty three-ton vehicle roared toward the blockade alone.
The mercenaries reacted instantly. A barrage of armor-piercing gunfire lit up the night, hammering into the charging rover’s radiator and hood. The vehicle took devastating damage, tires shredding under concentrated fire, but its momentum carried it forward like an unguided missile. It plowed into the center SUV with an ear-splitting crunch of crushed metal and shattering glass, triggering a secondary explosion from ruptured fuel lines that enveloped the blockade in orange flame.
Under cover of the fire and confusion, I moved through the tree line along the gorge’s edge.
One contractor, attempting to flank the burning wreckage, stepped into the brush with his rifle raised. He didn't hear me until my boots landed silently behind him. Before he could turn his muzzle, I drove the muzzle of Julian’s sidearm beneath the rim of his helmet.
*Phut.*
He dropped into the damp pine needles without a sound. I took his radio, his spare magazines, and his encrypted comm-link headset, fitting the earpiece into my ear just as a familiar, aristocratic voice came crackling across the frequency.
"Clara? I know you can hear me."
It was Eleanor Vance. Cold. Pristine. Unshaken by the violence she had unleashed.
"You're a remarkable fighter, my dear," the matriarch purred. "Julian never appreciated your spine. But you cannot run across an ocean on foot with an infant. Drop the weapon, step onto the bridge, and I promise you will be allowed to live out your days comfortably in our Swiss facility. Disobey... and my orders to the retrieval team shift from capture to salvage."
May you like
I keyed the mic, my voice shaking with rage, but crystalline in its hatred: "If you want his blood, Eleanor... come down from your ivory tower and bleed for it yourself."
I smashed the radio against the stone and stepped out onto the iron trestle.
