Chapter 13 - Fire in the Clouds
The helicopter shook violently as tracer rounds tore through the night sky, ripping through the left stabilizer fin. The pilot wrestled the collective control, diving into a thick blanket of fog over the bay to break the enemy’s radar lock.
“They're Petrov’s remnants!” Marco yelled, leaning out the opened side door with an assault rifle, returning fire into the blinding rain. “They want the canister! They know the syndicate assets belong to whoever holds Vance’s biological heir!”
Nora didn't look outside. She completed the rapid autologous transfusion, watching the clear line pump fresh volume into Roman’s failing veins. Her head spun with sudden dizziness, but she forced herself upright, checking Mia’s heart monitor. The child’s rhythm was stabilizing, but the oxygen saturation remained critically low.
Roman’s eyes snapped open as the fresh blood entered his system. The lethal clarity returned to his gaze, though his body remained battered and broken. He reached for Marco’s spare sidearm hooked to the cabin wall.
“Pilot,” Roman rasped into the cabin headset, his voice cutting through the roar of the engine. “Take us down to the harbor crane array. Low altitude. Twenty feet above the shipping containers.”
“Boss, that’s suicide in this fog!” the pilot screamed back.
“Do it, or I shoot you myself,” Roman snarled.
The aircraft dropped like a stone, swooping between towering steel gantry cranes. The pursuing helicopter followed blindly, its searchlight cutting through the mist.
Roman hauled himself to the open bay door, his boots braced against the skid, his left arm wrapped around a nylon tether. He raised the heavy caliber pistol, timing the rhythmic swaying of the enemy chopper as it crested a row of stacked shipping crates.
“Nora,” Roman said, not looking back. “Cover the girl’s ears.”
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Roman fired three heavy rounds directly into the enemy helicopter’s exposed turbine intake as it swept past an industrial loading crane. The aircraft exploded in a blinding fireball, illuminating the dark harbor before plummeting into the black water below.
The shockwave tossed their cabin sideways. Roman’s tether snapped, and his body slid over the wet metal threshold, hanging over the roaring abyss.
