Chapter 23 - The Deep Water Trigger
Rebecca broke through the smoke and tumbling masonry, sprinting down the rock path toward the pier just as the upper terraces of the mansion collapsed into the boiling ocean in a colossal cloud of pulverized stone and fire.
Down at the dock, Emma was in the pilot seat of the black interceptor, turbines idling at maximum RPM, keeping the bow steady against the surging twelve-foot waves.
"Mom! Jump!" Emma screamed over the roar of the engines.
Rebecca cleared the final ten yards, leaping through the spray and landing hard on the carbon-fiber deck as the pier behind them snapped in two, swallowed by the rising tide and falling rock.
Emma slammed the throttles forward. The interceptor surged into the open sea, cutting through the swells as Osprey Rock burned behind them, disappearing beneath a pall of black smoke and crashing surf.
Emma collapsed back against the pilot chair, breathing heavily, tears of adrenaline cutting through the salt on her face. "Is it done? Is the foundation gone?"
Rebecca reached into her vest, pulling out the hollow brass key and the encrypted drive she had torn from the master ledger. "The empire is broken. The Department of Justice will have the files by daybreak. We're free, Emma."
Suddenly, the interceptor’s main navigation console flickered and died.
The twin turbine engines sputtered, their digital fuel feeds instantaneously cutting out. The boat drifted dead in the black water, tossed by the freezing ocean swells.
From the dark cabin beneath the helm, a slow, methodical clapping echoed up the companionway steps.
Rebecca drew her sidearm in a flash, pushing Emma behind her back.
A man stepped out of the cabin darkness into the dim green glow of the emergency panel. He wore a crisp naval overcoat, unmarked by the storm, carrying a silenced SIG Sauer pointed directly at Rebecca’s chest.
He wasn't one of Eleanor’s mercenaries. He was someone Rebecca had buried with full military honors eight years ago in Arlington National Cemetery.
May you like
Her husband.
"You really should have left that brass key in the vault, Becca," he said with a faint, sorrowful smile. "Eleanor was only the manager. I was the architect."
