Chapter 6 - Into the Lion’s Den
Burke had aged, but only in the way a predator gets leaner and grayer as the years wear on.
He wore a tailored civilian field coat over body armor, his silver hair cropped close, his eyes possessing the calm, unblinking arrogance of a man who had traded human lives for corporate stock options for so long he no longer saw the difference.
"Senior Chief Ramirez," Burke said, his voice smooth, entirely undisturbed by the gunfire echoing inside the building behind me. "I have to admit, when Keller told me you were alive, I was genuinely impressed. Most people with your injuries crawl into a corner and die of sepsis or self-pity."
I kept my pistol aimed at his forehead, but my hands were burning from the effort of holding my posture without abdominal support. Behind me, the sound of Cross’s carbine was getting closer, moving from the center of the warehouse toward the rear doors.
"Tell your men to stand down, Burke," I said, my voice steady. "The drive is out. It’s unencrypted. The minute Cross hits the emergency transponder on his vest, the telemetry files dump to three separate naval intelligence servers."
Burke let out a low, aristocratic laugh that was swallowed by the roar of the surf.
"You always were an idealistic little medic, Ramirez," he said, stepping an inch closer, his suppressed weapon never drifting from my face. "You think naval intelligence cares? Who do you think signed off on my subcontract? The Vice Chief of Naval Operations sits on my advisory board. Two former Secretaries of Defense hold twenty percent of Vanguard’s preferred shares. You think a broken girl in a wheelchair and a crippled dog can bring down a defense architecture that runs half the wars in the Middle East?"
"I don't need to bring down the architecture, Burke," I whispered.
Rex stepped out from the shadow of my chair.
His left shoulder was still matted with blood, the white gauze sticking to his fur. His lips curled back over his steel caps, exposing four inches of lethal metal. He looked at Burke—the man who had given the order that burned his original handler into ash.
Burke’s eyes flicked to the dog. For the first time, a hairline fracture appeared in his polished veneer. He took a half-step back, his boots slipping slightly on the wet cedar planking of the dock.
"Down," Burke ordered, his voice sharp, trying to use the standard military handler tone. "Dog. Down."
Rex didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He lowered his front quarters, his weight transferring to his powerful haunches, his golden eyes locked onto Burke’s throat.
"He doesn't take orders from traitors," I said.
From inside the shed, Cross burst through the smoke, blood streaming down the left side of his face from a shrapnel graze along his temple. He fired two rounds behind him, sealing the breach with a shower of lead, then kicked the manual emergency release for the overhead fuel lines.
A stream of high-octane marine diesel rained down over the pallets and the entryway. Cross pulled a signal flare from his vest, struck it against his hip, and tossed the burning red torch into the pool of fuel.
WHOOSH.
A wall of orange fire erupted across the back of the warehouse, cutting off the surviving mercenaries and turning the shed into an inferno.
Burke turned his pistol toward Cross.
"Rex, VIGIL!" I screamed.
It was the final command. The one Caleb had taught him in the mountains. Not an attack command; a sacrifice command.
Rex launched himself across the six feet of open dock. He didn't hit Burke’s arm. He hit his chest with the force of an artillery shell, driving the sixty-year-old contractor off his feet and over the edge of the wooden pier.
Burke screamed as he fell, his pistol discharging wildly into the salt mist, before both he and the hundred-pound dog crashed into the freezing black surf of the bay below.
"Rex!" I yelled, throwing myself forward against the push-rims of my chair, rolling straight to the edge of the drop.
"Olivia, hold!" Cross grabbed the back of my chair with one massive arm, anchoring me before my wheels went over the lip.
Ten feet below, in the churning foam where the ocean met the pilings, the water erupted.
Burke surfaced first, gasping, flailing in his heavy body armor, his silver hair plastered across his face. But behind him, cutting through the chop like an otter, came Rex. The Malinois closed the distance in two strokes, his steel-capped jaws clamping onto the collar of Burke’s tactical vest, dragging him backward toward the barnacle-encrusted pilings with terrifying, mechanical power.
"Cross!" I yelled. "The boat! Get the boat down!"
Cross hit the hydraulic winch on the dock. The Boston Whaler dropped into the water with a heavy slap. Cross vaulted the railing, landing on the center console with cat-like agility, his boots hitting the fiberglass deck. He reached over the gunwale, grabbed Burke by the scruff of his neck, and hauled the choking, half-drowned contractor onto the floor of the boat like a landed shark.
Then, he leaned down and extended his arm for the dog.
"Rex! Up! Hopp!"
Rex caught the lip of the gunwale with his front paws, his hind legs churning the water into foam. Cross hooked his fingers under the dog's nylon harness and heaved, hauling the water-logged Malinois into the boat.
Rex shook himself violently, spraying freezing seawater across the fiberglass, before turning to stare up at me from the deck.
Cross looked up from the helm, his face illuminated by the roaring flames of the burning warehouse behind me.
"Your turn, Doc!" he roared over the sound of the engines. "Lock your wheels and lean forward!"
He reached up, grabbed the heavy tubular frame of my wheelchair with both hands, and with a roar of pure, adrenaline-fueled strength, pulled me, the chair, and everything down into the boat, catching us against his chest as the craft rocked violently in the swell.
I landed hard on the deck, my hands gripping the gunwale, my breath knocked out of me, but the chair stayed upright.
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Cross slammed the twin throttles forward.
The two-hundred-horsepower outboards roared to life, their stainless steel props biting into the black water, and the Boston Whaler leaped forward, carving a path through the night toward the open, unyielding expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
