Chapter 7 - The Crash at Daingerfield Island
The helicopter never made it to the airport.
With its hydraulic system leaking and the tail rotor vibrating uncontrollably from the Old Guard's fire, the pilot had no choice. He cut the throttles and auto-rotated down toward the only strip of open ground visible along the river: Daingerfield Island, a park and marina just north of Alexandria.
I saw the aircraft drop through the gray clouds like a dying bird.
The rotors struck the tops of a stand of weeping willows, shredding branches with a sickening mechanical roar that sounded like an artillery barrage. The main chassis slammed into the soft, rain-soaked earth, slid twenty yards through the mud, and flipped onto its starboard side, throwing up a geyser of silt, river water, and shattered plexiglass.
One rotor blade snapped free, scything through the air and burying itself six feet deep into the asphalt of the marina parking lot.
I slammed the Suburban’s brakes, drifting the heavy SUV across the gravel entrance before coming to a halt thirty yards from the smoking wreckage.
Steam hissed as rain hit the burning engine cowling.
Fuel was pouring from the ruptured belly tank, pooling into the muddy grass, smelling pungent and volatile.
I drew Marcus’s 1911, stepped out of the vehicle, and moved forward, scanning the broken fuselage.
The pilot was hanging from his harness inside the shattered cockpit, bloody and unconscious, but breathing.
The passenger door on the upper side of the flipped fuselage was jammed open.
Two sets of muddy footprints led away from the wreck, staggering toward the river’s edge where an old wooden dock jutted out into the churning, gray current of the Potomac.
I followed the trail through the reeds.
Standing at the end of the dock, rain lashing against them, were Arthur and Julian.
Julian was on his knees, vomiting river water and bile, his arm broken, clutching his shoulder in agony. His face was covered in cuts from the shattered windshield.
Arthur stood over him, holding a waterlogged leather briefcase in his left hand, clutching a small snub-nosed revolver in his right. His suit was torn to ribbons, covered in black river mud. The aristocratic patriarch had been stripped away down to the bone, revealing the vicious, desperate rat underneath.
He heard my boots hit the wooden planks of the dock and spun around.
The snub-nosed revolver pointed directly at my chest.
"Stop right there!" Arthur screamed, his voice competing with the roaring wind and the churn of the river below. "Stay back, Clarissa! I swear to God, I’ll shoot!"
I didn't stop. I walked forward with slow, deliberate steps until I was fifteen feet away, Marcus’s Colt held resting at my side.
"You won't shoot, Arthur," I said, my voice carrying clear and flat across the dock. "You don't know how. You hire people like Thomas Webb to do your killing for you while you sit in country clubs and drink scotch."
"You don't know anything about this world!" Arthur screamed, his hand trembling violently on the grip of the gun. "I built this empire! Marcus was a fossil! He wanted to run an international defense giant like an infantry platoon! You can't win in Washington on honor and duty! It takes capital! It takes leverage! It takes compromise!"
"Compromise?" I spat the word like poison. "You called six dead kids in Syria a compromise?"
Arthur’s face twitched. "That was a supplier failure! It wasn't our fault!"
"Julian signed the memo, Arthur," I said, pointing the muzzle of my weapon toward my brother.
Julian looked up from the wet planks, sobbing hysterically. "Dad told me to! He said it was just paperwork! He said the tests were rigged by competitors! Clarissa, please... I’m your brother! My arm is broken... God, it hurts so bad..."
"Shut up, Julian!" Arthur roared, kicking his own son in the ribs with his muddy oxford shoe. "Shut your mouth!"
Julian curled into a ball, weeping into the sodden wood.
I looked at Arthur, disgust heavy in my throat. "Grandpa knew. He had the Cayman accounts. He had the wire transfers from Valmont. He gave you a chance to surrender, didn't he? He called you to the carriage house, and instead of taking your punishment like a man, you sent Webb with a syringe."
"Marcus was going to destroy us!" Arthur yelled, tears of rage finally mixing with the rain on his cheeks. "He was going to put his own blood in prison! For what? For some grunt from Ohio who didn't know how to keep his head down in a trench? We are Vances! We rule this city!"
"No," a deep, thunderous voice boomed from the sky. "You disgraced this city, Arthur."
Above the river, the mist parted.
Two massive olive-drab UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters descended directly over the dock, their searchlights cutting through the gray gloom, pinning Arthur and Julian in blinding columns of white light.
The downdraft whipped the river into white foam, threatening to tear the wooden dock from its pilings.
Armed federal marshals and FBI tactical teams emerged from the tree line along the shore, their rifles trained on Arthur's chest.
*"Drop the weapon!"* a loudspeaker bellowed from the lead helicopter. *"Drop the weapon and step away from the edge!"*
Arthur looked at the helicopters. He looked at the marshals.
Then he looked back at me.
His eyes were completely hollow. He knew it was over. He knew the Vance name—the only thing he had ever truly worshiped—was about to be dragged through every courtroom, newspaper, and prison block in America.
Slowly, his trembling hand raised the snub-nosed revolver, aiming it squarely between my eyes.
"If I go down," Arthur whispered, his lips peeling back from his teeth, "Marcus’s favorite little soldier doesn't get to stand on my grave."
May you like
His finger tightened on the trigger.
***
