Chapter 16 - The Belly of the Beast
We descended through the ship's luxurious interior—white marble, mahogany paneling, and crystal chandeliers that mocked the violence unfolding beneath them. Catherine Vance had built this floating palace with the stolen blood and sweat of American soldiers, wallowing in obscene luxury while Rosalie was beaten within an inch of her life in an abandoned warehouse.
Every step deeper into the yacht was a reckoning.
At the second bulkhead, we met resistance. Three mercenary guards exited a stateroom, alerting to our presence.
"Intruders on deck—"
Gunfire erupted, muted and lethal. Our suppressed weapons cut through the narrow corridor with surgical violence. Briggs swept left; I cleared right. Spent brass bounced softly on the plush carpeting. Two guards went down instantly; the third lunged forward with a drawn knife, but Rosalie stepped into the breach, driving a side-kick into his wounded knee and firing two clean rounds into his center plate.
She lowered the smoking barrel, her chest heaving slightly, but her gaze never wavered.
"Clear," she whispered.
"Door ahead is the primary vault," Briggs called out, covering our rear corridor. "We've got heavy radio traffic on the upper bridge. Kane knows someone is aboard. He’s initiated the data transfer!"
We reached the blast door of the lower communications center. It was a reinforced vault door built directly into the ship's keel. A red digital countdown flickered on the interface panel:
**PURGE SEQUENCE: 04:12... 04:11...**
"He’s dumping the evidence," Briggs swore, trying to bypass the electronic lock with a decryption pad. "It's locked down with a dual biometric protocol. Catherine’s master encryption."
"Step aside," Rosalie said calmly.
She stepped up to the optical scanner. She placed her right hand flat against the glass screen.
*BIOMETRIC SCAN: VANCE, ROSALIE. DNA MATCH CONFIRMED. ACCESS GRANTED.*
The hydraulic locks hissed as the massive door slid back.
Inside, standing before a glowing bank of mainframe servers, stood Colonel Victor Kane.
May you like
He was older now, with silver at his temples and a deep scar cutting across his jaw, but his eyes were the same dead, soulless mirrors I remembered from the Kandahar debriefings ten years ago. In his hand, he held a heavy .45 caliber pistol aimed directly at my chest.
"Alexander Sinclair," Kane smiled, a wolfish, predatory baring of teeth. "Just like your foolish father. You always did run headfirst into a slaughter."
