Chapter 19 - The High Command Inquisition
Arthur didn't wait for my response.
With a roar that tore through the freezing morning air, Arthur Vance hurled himself forward into the open clearing, pulling the pin from the grenade. "Douglas! You want the legacy? Come and take it!"
The contractors fired instantly.
A hail of suppressed rifle rounds slammed into Arthur’s chest plate and torso. He jerked violently under the kinetic impact, but the sheer momentum of his final charge carried him ten yards forward before he collapsed into the frozen mud, the live grenade slipping from his fingers and rolling beneath the lead contractor’s boots.
"Grenade!" one of the mercenaries screamed.
*BOOM.*
The detonation ripped through the forward security team, sending shrapnel, mud, and smoke into the air, instantly blinding the helicopter's line of sight.
"Dad!" The scream tore from my throat, but tactical instinct overrode the blinding grief in my veins.
I didn't break for the treeline. I broke toward the aircraft.
Through the dense smoke of the explosion, I moved like a ghost. The second contractor was disoriented, coughing through the dirt; I closed the distance in two strides, driving the heel of my combat knife into his carotid junction, wrenching his M4 carbine from his falling hands.
"Suppress the perimeter!" Chairman Douglas was screaming over the roar of the rotor blades, dragging Eleanor up the ramp into the helicopter's fuselage. "Get us airborne! Now!"
I raised the captured rifle, setting the selector switch to semi-automatic, and squeezed three controlled pairs through the swirling cloud of gray smoke.
The two remaining mercenaries guarding the ramp dropped, their armor punched through by 5.56 armor-piercing rounds.
Douglas turned, terror twisting his refined features as he saw me emerging from the smoke—blood-soaked, eyes burning with lethal intent, a phantom returned from the dead. He raised his pistol, but my bullet took him through the right wrist. The weapon shattered, spinning into the dirt as he cried out, collapsing against the helicopter's interior bulkhead.
"Pilot! Lift off! Lift off, damn you!" Eleanor screamed from inside the cabin, desperately trying to pull the sliding door shut.
I leaped onto the landing skid just as the helicopter surged upward, its rotors whipping the pines into a frenzy.
The sudden acceleration pulled my boots into empty air, thirty feet above the tree line. With a desperate heave of my shoulders, I dragged myself through the open bay door, rolling across the aluminum deck.
Eleanor lunged at me with a discarded survival blade. "You ungrateful bitch!"
I blocked her thrust with my left forearm, the blade slicing deep into my tactical sleeve, but I didn't feel it. Adrenaline was pure fire in my veins. I caught her wrist, twisted it until the bone cracked, and drove my forehead violently into her face.
Eleanor staggered backward, crashing against Chairman Douglas, the knife dropping to the floor.
I planted my boot on Eleanor’s chest, pinning her to the deck, and leveled the carbine at the back of the pilot's helmet.
"Level this bird out, or you paint the windshield with your brains," I commanded, my voice cold, lethal, and devoid of tremor.
The pilot froze, his hands gripping the cyclic. "Holding altitude! Don't shoot! I'm just a contractor!"
"Set a course for Fort Meade, Maryland. Air Force Command Hangar Four," I ordered. "Transmit transponder code Sierra-Seven-Niner-Zero. Tell them Major Maya Vance is coming home with the High Command Architect in chains."
Douglas groaned on the floor, holding his shattered wrist, staring at me with hollow disbelief. "You think... you think Fort Meade will protect you? The entire Joint Chiefs are compromised, Maya. The moment this bird lands, you will be executed for high treason on the tarmac. You have nothing."
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I reached into my pocket and pulled out Arthur’s encrypted black drive, holding it in front of his eyes.
"I have the ledger, Douglas," I said quietly. "And my father died making sure I brought it back."