Chapter 8 - The Fire on the Cliffside
The stairwell to the roof was filled with the deafening thunder of gunfire.
Marcus and the other three operatives formed a moving wall of suppressive fire, their weapons barking in controlled, devastating bursts as Damian’s mercenaries attempted to push up the narrow concrete steps from the second floor.
Cassandro took the stairs two at a time, protecting Natalie’s head with his shoulder, shielding her body with his own Kevlar-clad torso.
Natalie was conscious now, clinging to the lapels of his tactical vest with surprising strength. Her senses, long dulled by the daily cocktail of neuroleptics, were waking up in a rush of adrenaline and terror. The smell of gunsmoke, the roar of automatic fire, and the icy sea wind whipping through the open stairwell doors were shocking her system back to life.
"Cass..." she gasped, her eyes wide with fear as a bullet ricocheted off the steel handrail inches from their heads with a high, singing *SPANG*.
"Look at me, Natalie," Cassandro commanded, his voice steady, cutting through the chaos like an anchor in a hurricane. "Keep your eyes on my face. Don't look down. Don't look at them. Just look at me."
She locked her hazel eyes onto his, nodding faintly, burying her face into his neck.
They burst through the heavy steel door onto the rooftop.
The night sky was a churning mass of low, charcoal-colored clouds. The wind off the Ligurian Sea was howling at forty knots, whipping the rain horizontally across the concrete helicopter pad.
Fifty yards away, the twin-engine helicopter hovered just three feet above the skid markers, its rotor wash beating the rain into a blinding spray, the navigation lights flashing brilliant bursts of crimson and emerald against the dark mist.
"Go! Go! Go!" Marcus shouted from the doorway behind them, turning to lay down a final volley of fire into the stairwell to pin down the advancing mercenaries.
Cassandro sprinted across the rain-slicked roof.
Suddenly, a side door from the elevator mechanical room kicked open.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a black tactical jacket stepped out, raising a shotgun directly toward Cassandro’s exposed back. It was the sanitarium’s chief administrator—the corrupt physician who had signed off on Natalie’s chemical torture for three long years.
"Stop right there, Moretti!" the doctor screamed over the roar of the rotors. "Drop her, or I take you both down!"
Cassandro didn't break stride. He didn't have a weapon in his hands—both arms were wrapped securely around his wife.
"Marcus!" Cassandro yelled.
A single, suppressed rifle shot echoed from the rooftop doorway.
The doctor’s head snapped back. He dropped the shotgun instantly and collapsed backward onto the rain-soaked gravel, motionless.
Cassandro reached the helicopter.
Eli’s hands reached down from the open cabin door, grabbing Natalie under her arms and pulling her safely inside onto the padded bench seat. Cassandro vaulted up immediately after her, turning back to haul Marcus and his men inside as they bounded across the roof.
"All aboard! Lift! Lift!" Marcus roared into his headset.
The pilot pulled pitch. The helicopter surged upward with a violent groan of turbines, banking steeply over the jagged cliffs as several sporadic rifle shots sparked harmlessly against the reinforced armored belly of the aircraft.
Below them, Saint Jude shrank into a tiny cluster of sterile white lights clinging to the edge of the dark, churning sea.
Inside the cabin, the heavy sliding door was slammed shut, cutting off the deafening roar of the rotors and the stinging rain.
Eli immediately wrapped Natalie in three heated emergency blankets, placing an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. She pushed the mask down with a trembling hand, her eyes searching wildly around the cabin until they locked onto Cassandro.
He knelt in front of her on the vibrating metal floor, his hands reaching out to clasp hers.
"It’s over," he whispered, his forehead leaning against hers. "It’s over, Natalie. We’re going home."
"Audrey..." she wept, the tears flowing freely now, hot and cleansing against her gaunt face. "I need to see my baby, Cass. Please... tell me she knows who I am."
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"She knows you," Cassandro said, smiling through his own tears as he pulled the tiny silver forget-me-not flower charm from his pocket and pressed it into her palm. "She never forgot you. Not for a single day."
***
