Chapter 6 - The Architect and the King
Marcus stood three feet from Evelyn, the black bore of the silenced weapon leveled between her eyes.
“Any last words for my brother?” Marcus sneered.
Evelyn looked him straight in the eye.
“Just one,” she whispered. “Duck.”
Marcus’s eyes widened in confusion, but before his finger could squeeze the trigger, the massive plate-glass window behind the console shattered with the concussive roar of an artillery shell.
A heavy tactical grapple hook smashed through the pane, followed instantly by two flashbang grenades that detonated in mid-air with a blinding white flash and a deafening 170-decibel crack.
Marcus shrieked, clutching his ears, his vision completely blown out by the magnesium flare. He fired three wild shots into the ceiling as he stumbled backward.
Through the shower of raining safety glass, a dark figure swung into the room like a vengeance demon from the storm.
Nolan hit the floor in a combat roll, coming up instantly on one knee.
He didn't fire his weapon. He didn't want Marcus to die that quickly.
Nolan lunged forward, closing the distance in less than half a second. His hand caught Marcus’s gun wrist, twisting it outward with an audible snap of fracturing bone. Marcus screamed, dropping the weapon as Nolan drove his left fist directly into the traitor’s throat, crushing his windpipe.
Marcus collapsed against the marble wall, choking, gasping for air, blood spilling over his lips.
Nolan didn’t look at him again. He spun around, his eyes wild with terror, scanning the room.
“Evelyn!”
She had rolled beneath the heavy steel frame of the executive desk when the glass blew, shielding her fractured ribs from the blast wave. As Nolan reached her, she pulled herself up, her face pale, hair dusted with glittering glass shards, but completely unharmed.
Nolan dropped to both knees, wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. His entire body was shaking with an intensity that rattled his heavy tactical gear.
“You’re whole,” he breathed, his voice cracking against her skin. “You’re alive.”
“I’m fine, Nolan, I’m fine,” she murmured, holding onto his broad shoulders, anchoring him. “Listen to me! Pier Four! There’s a truck under the foundation pillars—two tons of C-4 on a cellular timer! He’s going to detonate it in fifteen minutes!”
Nolan pulled back, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, lethal focus.
He rose to his full height, turning slowly toward the pathetic figure writhing on the floor.
Marcus was crawling toward the broken doorway, leaving a trail of crimson across the white tile. Nolan walked over, planted his heavy combat boot squarely on Marcus’s shattered wrist, and pressed down.
Marcus howled in agony.
“Where is the detonator code?” Nolan asked. His voice wasn’t loud. It was soft, calm, and terrifying beyond human comprehension.
“Go... to hell,” Marcus coughed out, spitting blood onto Nolan’s boot. “You’re too late... Nolan. You can’t make it to Pier Four... in fifteen minutes through the storm... It’s over. You lose.”
Evelyn stepped forward, ignoring the fire in her chest. She picked up Marcus’s discarded phone from the floor, plugged it into her diagnostic port on the terminal desk, and tapped five keys.
“I don’t need his code,” Evelyn said, her eyes blazing with triumphant brilliance. “Marcus used the harbor’s private 5G network to sync the cellular receiver on the detonator. The truck’s transponder is registered to Voss Logistics Unit 402.”
She turned to Nolan.
“I can’t disarm the bomb from here,” she said urgently. “The firing module is hardwired. But I can flood the dry dock ballast tanks beneath Pier Four. If I open the sea gates right now, two million gallons of seawater will rush into the lower berths within eight minutes. The truck will be submerged under twenty feet of ocean water before the timer runs out.”
“Will the water stop the blast?” Nolan asked.
“The water pressure will compress the explosive shockwave by eighty percent and drown the cellular radio receiver before the trigger frequency can penetrate the water column,” Evelyn explained rapidly. “It will ruin the lower cargo deck, but the pier foundation will hold. The docks will survive.”
Nolan looked at his wife—the brilliant, untouchable architect of his salvation.
“Do it,” Nolan commanded.
May you like
Evelyn struck the red override key.
Across the harbor, deep mechanical groans echoed through the stormy night as the massive steel sea gates of Pier Four groaned open, allowing the icy Atlantic to swallow the conspirators’ final gambit whole.
