Chapter 67 - The Misfire and the Fall
The metallic click of the firing pin striking a spent primer cracked through the chamber like a dry twig. Derek’s carbine had misfired—fouled by the mud and grit of the Calumet freight yard.
Derek let out an animal howl of frustration, violently yanking the charging handle back to clear the stovepiped round. That split second was all the universe granted.
I didn't think; my body moved on pure instinct and fury. I swept up the heavy brass base of a shattered floor lamp from the floor and hurled it with every ounce of strength I possessed. It spun end-over-end through the air, striking Derek squarely across his shattered jaw. The blow snapped his head back with a wet crunch, sending him stumbling against the gilded guardrail of the catwalk.
Below him, Jonah roared. Veins bulged along his neck and forearms as he flexed against the smooth iron rim of the grate. With sheer, terrifying physical power, he swung his lower body upward, hooking his boot into an iron conduit bracket, and vaulted himself out of the abyss onto the solid marble floor. In his left hand, the flashing crimson light of the detonator blinked its final warning: *00:03*.
Jonah slammed his thumb into the recessed disarm stud on the side of the casing, tearing the battery housing free with a brutal twist of his wrist.
The red display died. The hissing roar of the gas mainline cut out with a shuddering groan as the automated dampers sealed shut deep within the sub-basement.
"Derek!" Sterling Vance screamed from beneath the wreckage of the chandelier, spitting blood and plaster. "Kill them! Shoot them, you pathetic coward!"
Derek recovered, wiping bloody saliva from his torn lips, his bloodshot eyes fixed on me with murderous mania. He raised the carbine again, having racked a fresh round into the chamber. "If I don't own you, Nina," Derek snarled, "nobody leaves this room alive!"
A deafening boom echoed through the vaulted ceiling, but it didn't come from Derek's weapon.
Behind the catwalk doors, the heavy oak panels splintered inward. Mack stood framed in the opening, flanked by a squad of tactical federal marshals wearing tactical body armor. Mack lowered his smoking Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun, having blown the door locks clean off.
"Drop it, boy," Mack rumbled, his voice cutting through the ringing silence like a locomotive horn. "Or the next slug takes your head off."
Derek froze. He looked from Mack's shotgun down to Jonah, who was already on his feet, stepping between me and the catwalk like an immovable wall of iron and muscle. Then Derek looked at the ranks of federal agents pouring onto the floor below, their assault rifles raised and laser sights painting crimson dots across his chest.
The carbine slipped from Derek's trembling fingers, clattering uselessly against the steel grating. Derek sank to his knees, burying his face in his cuffed, bloody hands, weeping with the pathetic, hollow despair of a man whose illusions of godhood had finally dissolved into dust.
Jonah turned to me. His knuckles were raw, his charcoal shirt torn open at the chest, and soot covered his angular jaw, but his eyes were blazing with a fierce, intoxicating heat. He pulled me into his chest with an arm of solid steel, crushing me against him until my racing heart matched the thunderous rhythm of his own.
"You're safe, Nina," Jonah murmured, his lips pressing against my temple, his breath warm and steadying against the cold terror that had gripped my spine. "It's over."
"Not quite," I whispered, lifting my head from his chest. I looked across the pulverized marble toward the dais.
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Sterling Vance was crawling on his hands and knees through the debris of crystal and mahogany, desperately dragging his ivory cane toward the private executive exit behind the podium.
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