Chapter 20 - THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE
"No!" Victoria shrieked.
The silver capsule jammed instantly into the primary brass cogwheel of the five-ton revolving mechanism. A catastrophic grinding noise tore through the circular room. Sparks showered like volcanic slag across the concrete floor as the massive gears locked, seized, and tore themselves apart.
The sudden electrical short-circuit blew out the main breaker in a deafening bang, plunging the entire lighthouse into pitch-black darkness, save for the wild, strobing flashes of blue electrical arcs.
"Kill them! Kill them all!" Victoria screamed in the darkness.
Muzzle flashes strobed violently, tearing deafening holes through the air. Bullets chewed through the brick walls and ricocheted off the iron staircase with vicious whines.
"Up the stairs! Clara, take Noah and go up!" Daniel bellowed over the gunfire. Clara felt Daniel's massive hands shove her toward the iron spiral staircase before turning back into the dark to tackle the first armed guard.
Clara scooped Noah into her arms and ran. Her thighs burned, her lungs felt like they were inhaling broken glass as she bounded up the circular staircase, spiraling higher and higher into the sky. Behind her, she heard the sounds of brutal hand-to-hand combat—flesh striking bone, a man's strangled cry, and a body crashing over the railing to hit the stone floor fifty feet below.
"Daddy!" Noah cried, burying his face in Clara's neck.
"Keep climbing, Noah! Don't look down!" Clara gasped.
She reached the summit—the lantern room at the very top of the lighthouse, a glass dome surrounded by an exterior observation catwalk suspended two hundred feet above the raging Atlantic Ocean. The storm winds roared against the glass panes like a living beast, the waves crashing violently against the jagged sea cliffs far below.
Clara slammed the heavy iron hatch shut and threw the deadbolt.
She turned around, gasping for air, clutching Noah tightly against her pounding heart. They were trapped. There was nowhere left to run.
Suddenly, the glass pane behind them shattered into a million glittering shards.
A gloved hand reached through, unlatching the emergency catwalk door. Standing on the rain-swept balcony, drenched in seawater and covered in soot, was Victoria Sterling.
In her trembling hand was no longer a decorative pearl-handled revolver from the gala. It was a heavy, military-issue Glock, pointed squarely between Clara's eyes.
Behind Victoria, through the howling wind and rain, the heavy hatch behind Clara began to buckle under brutal blows from an iron fire axe.
*BANG.*
The metal hatch dented inward.
Victoria smiled—a cold, terrifying, psychotic grin that stretched her bloodied lips across her teeth.
"End of the line, Clara," Victoria whispered, her finger tightening on the trigger. "Say goodbye to your family."
Before the hammer fell, a deafening mechanical roar ripped the sky apart as a blinding military searchlight pinned both women against the raging storm, and a loudspeaker boomed over the hurricane winds from an unmarked black helicopter hovering twenty yards away:
*"DROP THE WEAPON, VICTORIA STERLING. THIS IS THE UNITED STATES MARSHALS SPECIAL OPERATIONS GROUP. WE HAVE JULIAN STERLING ON BOARD."*
Victoria’s gun froze in mid-air. Clara’s heart stopped.
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Julian was dead. Daniel had confirmed it five years ago.
And then, through the open hatch behind Clara, the door blew off its hinges—and the shadow that stepped through holding the bloody axe wasn't Daniel at all...
