Chapter 16 - Midnight Thunder
"Execute," Claire commanded, her whisper instantly drowned out by the clap of thunder overhead.
At that exact second, Miller’s suppressed sniper rifle fired from two hundred yards out in the marsh.
The three massive industrial floodlights atop the main hangar shattered simultaneously into a shower of burning sparks.
The entire airfield plunged into pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the rhythmic flash of the jet’s navigation strobes.
Shouts of panic erupted from the tarmac as mercenary guards scrambled for night-vision scopes and cover.
"We have incoming fire! Protect the package!" a guard screamed through the torrential rain.
Claire vaulted the chain-link perimeter fence like a ghost, moving across the tarmac with deadly speed.
A guard emerged from behind a fuel tanker, raising his submachine gun toward the perimeter breach.
Claire closed the distance before he could shoulder the weapon, driving her rifle barrel into his solar plexus.
She spun, using his momentum to slam his head against the steel bumper of the tanker, dropping him instantly into the mud.
"Hangar is breached! Move, move, move!" Marcus roared behind her, providing lethal suppressing fire with precise, three-round bursts.
Two more armed hostiles went down on the boarding ramp, their weapons skittering uselessly across the wet concrete.
Raymond Vance turned in sheer terror toward the sudden violence, his expensive umbrella ripped away by the gale-force wind.
"Get on the plane! Evelyn, get on the damn plane!" Raymond screamed, shoving Claire's mother toward the aluminum stairs.
Evelyn tripped on her designer heels, tumbling onto the wet grating of the lower steps, screaming in terror.
"Raymond! They’re shooting at us!" Evelyn shrieked, clutching her designer bag as mud soaked into her cashmere coat.
"Shut up and move!" Raymond yelled, drawing a high-caliber pistol from beneath his tailored jacket.
Before he could take a single step up the ladder, a high-velocity round slammed directly through the Gulfstream's cockpit windshield.
The pressurized glass shattered into a thousand jagged diamonds, followed instantly by the deafening hiss of hydraulic fluid spraying from the nose gear.
Team Two had severed the steering lines; the million-dollar aircraft was completely immobilized.
"The jet is dead!" the pilot shouted, throwing open the cabin door and diving headfirst onto the tarmac to save his own skin.
Raymond stared in horror at the paralyzed jet, realizing his multi-billion-dollar escape route had just been erased.
He whipped around toward the dark runway, raising his pistol, searching wildly through the driving rain.
A figure emerged slowly from the shadows of the fuel truck, walking toward him with measured, terrifying calm.
Claire walked through the downpour, her rifle held at low ready, water dripping from the brim of her tactical cap.
"Put the weapon down, Raymond," Claire said, her voice cutting through the scream of the storm like an executioner's bell.
Evelyn looked up from the wet metal stairs, her face streaked with mascara and rain, her aristocratic mask completely shattered.
"Claire?" Evelyn gasped, her voice trembling with a mixture of venom and pathetic desperation.
"You brought these animals here to kill your own mother?" Evelyn cried out into the rain.
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"No, Evelyn," Claire replied without breaking stride, her eyes fixed entirely on Raymond's shaking pistol.
"I came here to deliver justice for Corporal Reyes."
