Chapter 7 - The Siege of Port Townsend
The air in the hallway was thick with the suffocating reek of cordite, pulverized drywall, and burning insulation.
Clare lay stunned on the concrete floor, her ears ringing with a sharp, continuous screech. Coughing violently, she tried to push herself up, but a heavy weight was pinning her legs down.
"Clare..."
Vincent’s voice sounded muffled, as if coming from deep underwater. He pulled himself off her, his dark sweater torn across his shoulder, blood trickling down the side of his temple from a glass cut.
Despite his injuries, his instincts had locked into place with terrifying speed. He grabbed her arm, hauling her out of the ruined closet into the debris-strewn corridor.
"Can you walk?" he snapped, his eyes scanning the smoke-filled darkness.
"I... I think so," Clare wheezed, wiping ash from her eyes.
Above them, through the blown-out front wall of the structure, red tactical laser lines began cutting through the swirling grey smoke. Footsteps—heavy, rhythmic, military-grade boots—were advancing across the shattered wooden porch outside.
"They brought a breach squad," Vincent whispered, sliding behind a reinforced steel support pillar. He pulled a spare magazine from his belt, slapped it into his pistol with a crisp CLICK, and reached into his pocket to pull out the small black USB drive Clare had taken from the steel box.
He pressed the drive into her hand, wrapping her fingers around it tightly.
"Listen to me very carefully," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a steady, intense rhythm that forced her to focus through the panic. "This drive contains the decryption codes for the hardware under my collarbone. If Vance gets me, he will take my body to a black-site clinic and cut the drive out."
"Vincent, no—"
"If I die, Clare, you destroy this drive," he commanded, his eyes burning into hers with absolute authority. "Do not let Vance have it. Do not let Daniel have it. Do you understand me?"
"I'm not leaving you!" Clare wept, her fingers digging into his tactical vest.
"There's a storm drain access hatch beneath the server rack in the main room," Vincent said rapidly, ignoring her plea. "It leads out to the beach cliff three hundred yards down. You run. You don't look back."
A heavy thermal grenade bounced through the ruined front entrance, rolling across the concrete floor with a metallic CLATTER.
"GO!" Vincent roared.
He threw his body over hers, shoving her backward into the server room as the grenade erupted in a blinding, deafening flash of magnesium fire.
FLASH-BANG.
The sound felt like a physical hammer hitting Clare's chest. She crashed onto the floor near the overturned server racks, blinded by white light, her lungs burning.
Through the white haze, she saw Vincent leap to his feet, stepping directly into the doorway, his pistol roaring as he engaged the incoming strike team in the smoke.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Shouts in foreign languages echoed through the ruined house, punctuated by the dull THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of suppressed submachine gun fire. Sparks showered over the room as bullets tore through the metal server casings above her head.
Clare scrambled across the floor, her hands desperately searching beneath the fallen equipment until her fingers brushed against the cold iron rim of the storm drain hatch.
She grabbed the brass handle and pulled with all her strength.
The heavy iron lid swung open, revealing a pitch-black vertical shaft with a rusted steel ladder leading down into the roaring sound of the ocean below.
She looked back toward the doorway.
Vincent was kneeling in the corridor, his back against the pillar. He had been hit—a dark patch of blood was spreading rapidly across his side. But he was still firing, holding the hallway against three armored figures advancing through the smoke.
"Vincent!" Clare screamed through the din.
He turned his head briefly, his blood-stained face illuminated by the muzzle flashes of his weapon.
"RUN, CLARE!" he shouted.
A heavy boot stepped through the smoke behind Vincent. A tall man in a dark tailored overcoat—holding a heavy nickel-plated revolver—stepped into the light.
Nikolai Vance.
Vance raised the revolver, aiming it directly at the back of Vincent's head.
"Goodbye, little vault," Vance said smoothly.
Before Vance could pull the trigger, a single high-caliber rifle shot shattered the glass skylight above the corridor.
CRACK.
The heavy 7.62mm round tore through Vance's right shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him against the wall.
High above on the rain-slicked roof, a shadowed figure holding a suppressed sniper rifle peered down through the broken glass.
May you like
The figure reached up, pushing back his hood, revealing a pale, sharp face, dark eyes, and a silver signet ring glinting on his finger in the dark.
Daniel.
