Chapter 13 - Smoke and Crimson
The explosion ripped the hinges clean off the heavy steel fire door at the top of the stairwell, sending a blinding flash of white light and thunderous pressure tearing through the stairwell. Smoke plumed in violent gray rolls, suffocating the emergency lanterns.
"Down!" Hayes bellowed.
Two figures emerged through the haze, dressed in sterile black tactical jumpsuits, devoid of insignia or national flags, wielding suppressed carbines. They swept their barrels downward, moving with textbook lethal precision.
They weren't street thugs. These were former Eastern European state security or elite private contractors.
Before their sights could level on our position, Hayes fired three controlled pairs. The heavy 9mm rounds hammered into the lead operator’s chest plate. The kinetic force threw him back into the wall, breaking his momentum. I leaned out from the bulkhead, sighting the second intruder, and fired twice. My first round struck his shoulder; the second caught him in the throat where his ballistic vest offered no protection. He collapsed down the steel steps, his weapon clattering across the metal treads.
"Clear top!" Hayes shouted, stepping over the fallen operative to secure the upper landing.
A heavy groan came from the first man Hayes had shot. Hayes pinned him with a combat boot on his sternum, stripping the suppressed rifle from his limp fingers. He reached down, ripping off the man’s balaclava.
The face underneath was pale, scarred across the jaw, with eyes wide in shock as blood bubbled from his fractured ribs.
"Who issued the extraction order?" I demanded, pressing the muzzle of my pistol directly between his eyes. "Where did they take Derek Vance?"
The man coughed, a harsh, wet rattle. "You... you're too late, Admiral... He's already at the pier. The manifest... is cleared."
"What manifest?" Hayes growled, pressing his boot harder into the cracked sternum.
"The container... ship... *Vanguard Star*," the mercenary wheezed. "Leaves Norfolk in... forty minutes. Everything... all the guidance packages... and the boy."
"The boy?" I repeated, my stomach knotting. "Derek isn't a boy. He's thirty-four."
"Not Derek..." the mercenary whispered, a mocking sneer forming through the blood on his lips. "Derek’s son. Julian."
My breath caught in my throat. *Julian.*
Julian was Derek’s six-year-old son from his estranged marriage—a sweet, quiet boy whom Derek had barely acknowledged, leaving him in the care of private boarding pre-schools.
"Derek took Julian as leverage," Hayes realized, his jaw tightening into iron. "He’s using his own flesh and blood as a human shield to get aboard that freighter."
Before I could press the contractor further, a second wave of gunfire erupted from the floor below us—near holding cell Charlie-Four.
"Patricia," I whispered.
May you like
"They aren't just breaking out," Hayes said grimly. "They’re tying off loose ends."
***
