Chapter 7 - Counter-Strike
The rain outside the Mercer estate had turned into a torrential downpour, matching the deluge inside the flooded halls.
Declan, Nora, and Hallie moved through the subterranean service tunnels beneath the main house, emerging into the private underground garage where Declan kept his armored vehicles.
Nora slid the master drive into the console of Declan’s reinforced command SUV, connecting it to her satellite terminal.
Within seconds, the encrypted files spilled across the screens in blue streams of data.
“I’ve got her,” Nora said, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Constance isn't in New York. She’s sitting in a private helicopter parked on the estate’s north helipad three hundred yards behind the glass conservatory.”
Declan looked at the monitor. The live camera feed from the helipad showed a sleek black Eurocopter idling on the grass, its rotors spinning slowly in the rain. Standing beside the boarding stairs was Everett Shaw, holding a leather briefcase containing the original conservatorship filings.
“She’s waiting for Vance to confirm Hallie’s capture before she lifts off,” Declan realized.
“Then we cut her exit,” Nora said. She pulled two flashbang grenades and a tactical shotgun from the garage armory wall, handing the shotgun to Declan. “You take Vance. I’ll take the helipad.”
“No,” Hallie interrupted from the back seat of the SUV.
Declan turned to look at her. “Hallie, you’re staying inside the armored vehicle. The glass is bulletproof.”
“Grandmother has a remote kill-switch for the estate security system on her tablet,” Hallie said, leaning forward between the front seats. “If she realizes you’re coming, she’ll lock the subterranean gates and trap you inside the perimeter. I know the override frequency.”
Declan hesitated. The thought of taking his daughter anywhere near the helipad terrified him.
Nora looked at Declan, resting her hand on his shoulder. “She’s safer with us than sitting in a static vehicle if Vance’s men retreat to this garage. We move as a three-person unit.”
Declan swallowed his fear, looking into his daughter’s clear, determined face. He nodded slowly. “Three-person unit.”
They slipped out of the garage through the drainage duct, moving under the cover of the dense rhododendron bushes surrounding the north lawn.
The storm provided perfect acoustic cover. Thunder cracked across the sky, drowning out the sound of their boots pressing into the wet turf.
Ahead, through the sheet of falling rain, the glass conservatory glowed under emergency floodlights. Inside, Vance and four remaining mercenaries were frantically searching the shattered interior, shouting orders over their radios.
“Vance is mine,” Declan growled, raising his suppressed rifle.
“Wait for my flash,” Nora instructed.
Nora pulled the pin on a flashbang grenade, cooked it for one second, and lobbed it through the shattered glass roof of the conservatory.
BANG-FLASH!
A blinding white light and a deafening 130-decibel concussion blast erupted inside the glass structure.
Declan didn't wait. He stormed through the shattered side door like a unleashed demon.
TAT-TAT-TAT!
His rifle barked in rhythmic, lethal precision. Two mercenaries collapsed before they could clear their eyes. The third tried to raise his sidearm, but Declan closed the distance, driving his heavy combat boot into the man’s chest, throwing him into the central stone fountain.
Vance, blinded and disoriented, stumbled backward toward the rear exit, his gun shaking in his hand.
Declan stepped out of the water smoke, grabbing Vance by his tactical collar, slamming him face-first into the carved stone pillar.
“Declan!” Vance gasped, blood pouring from his nose. “Wait! It was your mother! She paid me! She told me you were soft!”
Declan leaned in close, his face dripping with rain and gun smoke.
“My wife died four years ago because of your greed, Vance,” Declan whispered softly. “And you came into my home to touch my daughter.”
Declan pulled his sidearm, pressed it beneath Vance’s chin, and pulled the trigger once.
PUFF.
Vance collapsed into the flooded flowerbeds, motionless.
Declan turned back toward the north lawn.
Across the grass, the engines of the Eurocopter whined into a high-pitched scream as the rotors began to beat the heavy air.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
Constance Mercer stood at the top of the helicopter stairs, looking back toward the conservatory with a pair of night-vision binoculars.
Beside her, Everett Shaw was frantically trying to pull the heavy cabin door shut.
“SCHELL!” Constance screamed at the pilot over the headset. “LIFT OFF NOW! LIFT OFF!”
“We have an obstruction on the pad!” the pilot shouted back.
Constance looked down through the rain.
Standing directly in front of the helicopter’s nose wheel, bathed in the blinding white glare of the landing lights, was Nora Bellamy—holding a tactical shoulder-fired anti-material grenade launcher she had retrieved from the estate’s primary armory.
Behind Nora, walking calmly through the rain, were Declan and Hallie.
Constance’s breath caught in her throat. Her face turned as white as a shroud as she stared down at her son, her blind granddaughter, and the maid who had destroyed her empire in a single night.
May you like
Nora rested her finger on the launcher’s heavy trigger, looking up into the cockpit.
“Shut it down, Constance,” Nora’s voice boomed over the estate’s PA system speaker. “Or I will convert this five-million-dollar helicopter into an open-air fire pit.”
