Chapter 20 - The Undersecretary's Gambit
Vance saw the window closing. The mercenaries around the ramp were lowering their weapons, their eyes darting nervously toward the hangar doors where the distant flashing red and blue lights of responding Military Police vehicles were finally breaking through the perimeter wire. The blackout had failed; the base was waking up.
"Kill them," Vance whispered to the contractor team lead beside him. "Kill them all now! We board the plane and take off! We have diplomatic clearance in Morocco!"
The team lead didn't move. He looked at General Hayes's three stars, then at the sound of sirens rapidly converging on the auxiliary strip, and took two steps back, raising his empty hands into the rain.
"Contract is void, Mr. Secretary," the operator muttered. "We aren't dying for an administrative audit."
"You coward!" Vance screamed, his voice turning into an unhinged shriek.
In a sudden, desperate blur of motion, Vance reached into the pocket of his overcoat, drawing a compact snub-nosed revolver. He didn't point it at General Hayes. He didn't point it at me.
He lunged forward, grabbing Eleanor by the collar of her heavy coat, swinging her violently around to use her as a human shield, pressing the muzzle of the revolver directly against her temple.
"Get back!" Vance roared, his eyes wide and bloodshot, spitting rain as he screamed. "Tell the pilot to spool up to maximum thrust! Clear the runway or I blow her head off right here on the concrete! You want to save the family honor, Colonel? You want to be the hero with the Silver Star? Tell your men to stand down!"
Eleanor froze. For the first time in my life, I saw true, unvarnished fear in her eyes. The mask of high-society elegance cracked, revealing the fragile, aging woman beneath the pearls and the fur. The cold rain plastered her hair against her face, running down her cheeks like frozen tears.
"Marcus..." she gasped, her voice barely a whisper against the roar of the idling C-17 behind them. "Marcus, help me..."
I held my carbine steady. The holographic reticle rested precisely between Vance's eyes, visible in the narrow gap above my mother's shoulder.
"Marcus, please!" Daniel screamed from the dark behind me, dropping to his knees in the mud. "Shoot him! He's going to kill her! Marcus, she's your mother!"
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"Drop the weapon, Vance," I said, my voice cutting through the chaos with terrifying, flat clarity. "You pull that trigger, and you won't make it to the cargo ramp."
"You won't shoot!" Vance shrieked, backing slowly toward the hydraulic stairs of the plane, dragging Eleanor with him. Her heels scraped helplessly against the wet tarmac. "You’re an officer of the United States Army! You live by the book! You let your own men die to protect an evacuation convoy—you won't execute your own mother in cold blood!"
