Chapter 9 - The Black Bird
The downdraft of the helicopter flattened the reeds around the creek bed, churning the water into a violent spray. Through the amplified megaphone mounted to the skid, Marcus Cole’s voice boomed across the gorge.
""Drop the drive, Rachel! There are no exits from this canyon! Bring the child out, and you walk away cleanly!""
Kane struggled to his feet, raising his sidearm, but his vision was blurring. Rachel grabbed his arm, pulling him beneath the heavy overhang of a collapsed bridge abutment.
""They won't let us walk,"" Kane rasped, spitting blood onto the gravel. ""The drive contains unredacted financial ledgers. It implicates the entire regional task force.""
Sniper fire cracked from the side door of the circling bird, sending stone chips flying off the bridge supports inches above their heads. Ethan curled into a ball behind a boulder, covering his ears.
Rachel looked down at the hard drive, then at Kane's failing pulse. She had spent ten years saving lives in emergency rooms, treating gunshot victims and trauma cases, watching the machinery of death claim people without mercy. A cold, fierce clarity settled over her.
""How do we access the drive?"" Rachel demanded.
""Biometric encryption,"" Kane gasped. ""It only opens with Daniel's thumbprint. Without him... it’s a brick.""
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Suddenly, an ear-splitting crack of a heavy-caliber hunting rifle echoed from the high bluffs across the gorge. The rear tail rotor of the helicopter sparked violently, trailing black smoke as it began an uncontrollable spin over the treetops.
A figure on the high ridge racked another round into a bolt-action rifle, standing tall against the morning sky.
