Chapter 62 - The Crimson Rotor
The deafening roar of the Black Hawk’s miniguns spun up with a terrifying, high-pitched electrical whine that cut straight through the howling wind of the quarry ridge. Tracer rounds cut bright red paths through the swirling smoke and falling snow, chewing into the granite boulders inches from Admiral Marcus Vance’s boots. Vance didn't flinch. He merely lowered his stance, his grip on his heavy sidearm locked with terrifying military precision, his eyes fixed dead on my chest through the burning wreckage of Julianna’s Sikorsky.
"Down! Get down!" I roared, grabbing Charles by the collar of his ruined designer jacket and violently shoving him behind the shattered carcass of an overturned fuel drum.
Julianna screamed, her hands clamped over her ears as flying shrapnel from the helicopter’s exploding turbine pinged off the gravelly earth around us. The heat from the burning aviation fuel was blistering, turning the sub-freezing mountain air into a choking vortex of black soot and chemical strench.
From the hovering Black Hawk fifty feet above, a tactical officer lowered himself down a fast-rope, his boots hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. He wore the unmarked matte-black gear of Division Nine, his suppressed carbine instantly sweeping the tree line where Vance had just emerged.
"Commander Ethan Hayes!" the operator barked through the comms-link on his tactical vest, his voice amplified by his helmet speakers. "Stand down! Secure the asset and drop your weapon!"
"Vance is right there!" I yelled back, pointing my rifle toward the wall of smoke where the Admiral had just vanished. "He’s the architect of the whole black-budget leak! He’s got the transponder codes to the regional grid!"
The Division Nine operator didn't blink. "Negative, Commander. Our orders are to secure the perimeter and neutralize all active unauthorized combatants. That includes Admiral Vance if he resists federal apprehension."
Before the operator could advance toward the tree line, a blinding flash of white light erupted from the opposite side of the ridge. A series of heavy, muffled concussions shook the earth beneath our boots—not from gunfire, but from synchronized explosive charges detonating along the upper cliff face.
"They're blowing the access road!" Sarah’s voice screamed over my earpiece, her signal breaking through a wall of static. "Ethan, get out of there! Vance has secondary backup moving up from the Emerald Bay side trail! They're cutting off the entire mountain!"
I turned to look at Julianna. She was curled in a fetal position in the mud, sobbing hysterically, the leather briefcase containing the foundational financial logs lying open beside her, its papers fluttering away in the fierce rotor wash. Charles was gasping for air, clutching his chest as if his heart were about to give out.
"Ethan... please..." Charles wheezed, his lips turning a pale, sickly blue. "Don't leave me here... your sister... she made a deal with them..."
"I know what she did," I said, my voice cold as the glacial water we had just escaped. I pulled the waterproof hard drive case tighter against my chest, checked the chamber of my carbine, and looked up at the Black Hawk’s open cargo door.
The Division Nine team leader motioned frantically for us to board. "Move! We have a three-minute window before their air defense batteries lock onto our coordinates!"
I grabbed Julianna by her arm, hauling her to her feet whether she wanted to move or not, and shoved her toward the rope ladder dangling from the military chopper. As I turned back to pull Charles up, a single, high-velocity bullet punched clean through the metal hull of the burning Sikorsky right beside my head, sending a white-hot spray of aluminum shards across my face.
Through the smoke, across the burning gap of the quarry, Admiral Vance stood tall on the ridge, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He wasn't aiming his gun anymore. He was smiling—a slow, terrifying grin of a man who knew something we didn't.
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"Lift off!" the team leader roared into his comms.
The Black Hawk lurched upward, its twin turbines screaming as we rose above the burning pines of Lake Tahoe, leaving the frozen wasteland of the quarry behind while the valley below began to burn.
