Chapter 7 - The Battle for Vanguard
The glass door of the main lobby shattered into a rain of crystalline shards.
Suppressed gunshots echoed down the carpeted hallway—quiet, rhythmic pop-pop-pop sounds that signaled professional mercenaries, not street thugs.
Marcus Vance and his operative returned fire from behind the marble reception desk, driving the intruders back toward the elevator bank.
“Move!” Julian ordered, ushering Daniel and me into the inner executive suite.
The executive vault was built into the reinforced concrete core of the skyscraper—a secure room designed to protect high-value patent prototypes and master data drives. Its five-inch-thick steel door stood half-open.
Before we could reach the threshold, a heavy flashbang grenade clattered across the carpet, rolling to a stop right between us.
“Cover your eyes!” Julian roared, throwing his body over mine.
BANG!
A blinding white light and a deafening shockwave exploded through the room. My ears rang with a high-pitched, agonizing whine. The room spun wildly.
Through the haze of smoke and ringing ears, I saw two men in tactical gear burst into the office, their assault rifles raised.
Behind them stepped a taller, older man in a tailored dark coat. He had short-cropped gray hair, cold gray eyes, and a military posture.
General Richard Blackwood.
“Julian,” Blackwood spoke, his voice smooth and devoid of any human emotion, echoing through the ringing in my ears. “I must admit, I was surprised to hear you were still breathing. You always were a hard man to kill.”
Julian pushed himself up from the floor, his handgun raised, but the two tactical guards immediately aimed their rifles at his chest.
“Drop the weapon, Julian,” Blackwood said calmly. “Or I will have them put a bullet through your wife’s head before you can pull the trigger.”
Julian’s hand trembled. Slowly, agonizingly, he lowered his handgun, letting it fall onto the plush carpet.
Blackwood walked over to the desk, inspecting the encrypted USB drive sitting beside the central terminal. He picked it up, slipping it into his pocket with a satisfied nod.
“You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, Julian,” Blackwood said, pulling a sleek, silver-suppressed pistol from his holster. “My daughter is in federal custody. My brother-in-law is singing to the grand jury. And my offshore accounts are frozen.”
He aimed the pistol directly between Julian’s eyes.
“It ends today,” Blackwood said softly. “A tragic family murder-suicide in the dark. The grieving widow, the resurrected husband, and the traumatized son—all dead before the police could arrive.”
“Wait,” I rasped, pushing myself up from the carpet, standing squarely between Blackwood’s gun and my husband.
Blackwood’s eyes shifted to me, an expression of mild annoyance on his face. “Move, old woman.”
“You think you’ve won, General,” I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the terror drumming in my chest. “You think you’re the smartest man in the room. But you made the exact same mistake your daughter made.”
Blackwood’s eyebrow twitched. “And what mistake is that?”
I pointed toward the small decorative smoke detector mounted on the ceiling directly above his head.
May you like
A tiny, blinking blue light was pulsing rhythmically inside the sensor housing.
“That’s not a smoke detector,” I revealed, a cold smile touching my lips. “That’s an Aegis tactical broadcast relay. From the moment the power cut out, every word, every image, and every face in this room has been streamed live to the State Police Command Center three blocks away.”
