Chapter 46 - Blood on the Catwalk
I climbed the rusted steel ladder like a shadow, timing my movements with the deafening hum of the cooling turbines that circulated cryogenic oxidizer into the missile's core. Every joint in my body ached, the phantom shrapnel from Al-Qaim burning like fire in my thigh, but the adrenaline overrode the pain.
At the second level, a mercenary stood on the catwalk with his back turned, adjusting the frequency of his tactical comm-link.
I stepped off the ladder without a sound. My left arm slipped around his throat in a tight, mechanical rear-naked choke while my right hand clamped down hard across his mouth, smothering the scream in his throat. We struggled for three agonizing seconds against the railing, his boots kicking against the grated steel floor, before his trachea collapsed and his body went limp.
I gently lowered him to the deck, stripping his tactical vest, two fragmentation grenades, and his suppressed HK416 carbine.
*BIOMETRIC SYNCHRONIZATION: 89%*
*LAUNCH IN THREE MINUTES.*
A voice barked through the mercenary's earpiece: *"Patrol Two, report. Did you hear that thump on the lower ring?"*
I didn't answer. I rose, leveled the HK416 over the railing, and fired three controlled bursts into the two mercenaries guarding the blast door of the launch control capsule fifty feet across the chamber.
The suppressed rounds hissed through the cold air. The guards collapsed before they could raise their rifles, their bodies tumbling over the railing into the six-story abyss below.
"Contact! We have an intruder on Ring Two!" a voice screamed from the overhead public-address speakers.
Sirens wailed in deafening unison, their red beams slicing through the industrial gloom. High-caliber rounds immediately chewed into the steel girder beside my head, spraying white-hot metal shavings across my cheek. I ducked behind a reinforced stanchion, returning fire with double-taps, dropping a mercenary who charged down the spiral stairs from Ring Three.
Through the gaps in the catwalk, I saw Arthur below. The General had reached the auxiliary pump station. He was pulling with all his might on a five-foot manual valve wheel, his face purple with exertion. Slowly, a deafening hiss echoed from the base of the silo as millions of gallons of frigid mountain river water began flooding into the flame trench below the rocket.
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"Marcus!" Eleanor’s voice amplified through the silo speakers, dripping with theatrical amusement and murderous hatred. "Did you really think you could play the hero one last time? You are just like your father—predictable, sentimental, and doomed!"
I reloaded on the move, sprinted across the metal bridge through a hail of ricocheting bullets, and kicked open the reinforced door to the launch capsule.
