Chapter 6 - Secrets Exposed
My heart plummeted into an abyss of pure horror.
“Frank!” I roared into my radio tactical link. “Get the helicopter ready! Now!”
Thomas slumped to the floor, unconscious, as I turned and sprinted back up the stairs, Emily right at my heels.
We burst onto the estate’s private helipad on the cliffside overlooking the stormy Atlantic. The rain had begun again, slanting wildly in the ocean wind. The twin engines of my Sikorsky S-76 helicopter were already roaring, the rotor blades slicing through the fog.
Frank was in the co-pilot seat, throwing open the side door as we approached.
“The bridge is jammed!” Frank shouted over the deafening roar of the rotors. “Vance’s men jackknifed a semi-truck on the north span! Detective Vance’s team is pinned down near the center tower!”
I grabbed the handrail and swung myself into the cabin. I turned to tell Emily to stay behind at the estate, but she was already inside, pulling a tactical headset over her ears and strapping herself into a jump seat.
“I’m not staying behind, Michael!” she yelled over the engine noise. “If Noah is caught in a crossfire, he could suffer secondary shock! You need a medic on that chopper!”
I stared at her for a long second, seeing the fierce, unyielding light in her eyes. I didn't argue. I slammed the side door shut and banged twice on the cabin wall. “Go! Go! Go!”
The helicopter lifted off into the dark, rain-swept sky, banking sharply toward the glowing skyline of Boston.
Down below, the city looked like a grid of light swallowed by darkness. As we approached the Bay Bridge, the scene of the ambush became horribly clear.
A massive tractor-trailer was turned sideways across four lanes of traffic, blocking all exit routes. Two unmarked black vans were parked near the center span, and heavy automatic gunfire was flashing in the darkness. Detective Frank Vance’s police cruiser was overturned, riddled with bullet holes, serving as temporary cover for my brother and two surviving officers.
Inside the rear of an armored medical transport vehicle fifty yards away, Noah was trapped.
“We can't land on the bridge!” the pilot yelled over the headset. “Too many light poles and cables! We have to drop you on the upper deck support beam!”
“Drop us!” I ordered.
I threw open the cabin door. The freezing wind hit us like a brick wall. Frank hooked a fast-rope line to the cabin rig, dropping the heavy nylon rope down toward the steel girders of the bridge tower twenty feet below.
Without hesitation, I grabbed the rope and slid down into the storm. Emily followed right behind me, sliding down the line with a fluid grace that proved her resilience once again.
We landed on the wet steel tower, forty feet above the roadway.
Below us, Victor Vance himself stood near the medical transport vehicle, dressed in a long leather coat, holding a heavy submachine gun. He was shouting commands to his men as they tried to breach the armored rear doors of the transport where my son was hidden.
“Vance!” I bellowed, my voice echoing like thunder over the roar of the wind and rain.
Victor Vance looked up. When he saw me standing on the steel girders above him, a dark, wicked grin spread across his face.
“Carter!” Vance shouted back, raising his weapon. “You’re too late! Your empire ends tonight! Your bloodline dies on this bridge!”
“Not tonight, Vance!” a voice called out beside me.
Emily stepped to the edge of the girder, the bright halogen floodlights of the helicopter illuminating her face.
Vance stared up at her, his grin faltering slightly as recognition registered in his eyes. “You... Richard Thorne’s brat?”
“My name is Dr. Emily Thorne!” she screamed down at him, her voice filled with four years of built-up retribution. “And I’m the one who’s sending you to hell!”
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She reached into her jacket, pulling out a heavy flare gun she had taken from the helicopter cabin. She aimed directly at the leaking fuel tank of the jackknifed semi-truck parked ten feet from Vance’s mercenaries.
She pulled the trigger.
