Chapter 12 - The Iron Horizon
The first operative inside the van never even cleared his sidearm from its holster.
Alexander hit the open sliding door like a battering ram, using his armored shoulder to shatter the man’s sternum. The operative flew backward into the interior server rack, monitors exploding in showers of green and amber sparks.
Marcus opened fire simultaneously from twenty yards out. Controlled, precise three-round bursts punched through the van’s reinforced windshield, eliminating the driver before the vehicle could be shifted into gear.
Dr. Sterling lunged for the pavement, rolling beneath the rear axle of a parked delivery truck to avoid the hail of lead. "Subdue them! Do not damage the specimen!" he screamed into his lapel communicator.
Alexander didn't care about Sterling. He stepped directly into the van's interior compartment, his knife working with terrifying, surgical precision. The second analyst reached for an automated defense panel; Alexander’s blade pinned the man’s hand to the mahogany console, followed instantly by a crushing right hook that severed the man’s consciousness entirely.
"Julian! Inside!" Alexander bellowed over the roar of gunfire echoing down the avenue.
Julian ran across the exposed street, ignoring the flying glass and richocheting rounds, diving into the reinforced passenger compartment of the Mercedes. Marcus followed directly behind, dragging the catatonic Eleanor by her collar and throwing her unceremoniously onto the rubberized floor of the rear cabin.
"Driver is down!" Marcus yelled, kicking the dead man out of the front seat onto the asphalt. Marcus slid behind the wheel, his combat boots slamming onto the pedals, his hands grabbing the leather-wrapped steering column.
"Keys are proximity-locked!" Marcus barked, staring at the flashing red dashboard interface: BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.
Alexander didn't waste a second. He leaned out of the open sliding door, grabbed the unconscious operative pinned to the console, and dragged the man’s limp right thumb across the ignition sensor on the dash.
The twin-turbo V8 engine roared to life with a predatory growl.
"Go!" Alexander shouted.
Marcus slammed the transmission into drive, the heavy rear tires smoking against the ash-covered asphalt as the Mercedes lunged forward, swerving violently around the wreckage of the street.
From beneath the parked delivery truck, Dr. Sterling crawled onto his knees, his face twisted in psychotic fury. He pulled a heavy satellite flare unit from his coat and fired it straight into the gray dawn sky.
A blinding red phosphorous trail arced over the Manhattan skyline, bursting into an expanding crimson star above the Hudson River.
Instantly, from the industrial docks two miles to the west, the heavy, rhythmic thrum of twin-rotor military gunships rattled the concrete canyons. Three matte-black Sikorsky helicopters rose into the morning mist, their forward thermal pods locking onto the transponder signal embedded in the Mercedes' engine block.
"We have air cavalry incoming," Marcus said, looking in the rearview mirror as he blasted through a red light onto the West Side Highway. "They’ll paint this highway with hellfire missiles before we reach the George Washington Bridge."
"They won't fire missiles on an open municipal corridor," Julian said, his voice breathless as he held Lily on the rear bench seat.
"They just leveled a sixty-story skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, kid," Marcus replied grimly, weaving through the sparse early-morning commuter traffic at eighty miles per hour. "These people don't care about collateral damage. They own the airspace."
Alexander sat in the open side doorway of the speeding van, reloading the captured carbine with mechanical precision. His black shirt was soaked through with his own blood, the flesh wound on his shoulder burning like white-hot iron, but his pulse was steady at sixty beats per minute.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small encrypted handset he had taken from the penthouse console hours ago.
The screen was still active. A single file had finished decrypting during their escape through the tunnel.
It was not a corporate contract. It was not a Swiss bank authorization.
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It was a personal video log recorded by Helena, dated three days before her supposed death in Italy.
Alexander stared at the tiny screen as the van hurtled toward the bridge, the shadow of the first attack helicopter crossing over their roof.
