Chapter 16 - Into the Tempest
The Atlantic was churning in a fury of black waves and white foam as Marcus’s rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) slammed through the six-foot swells. Saltwater lashed against Clara’s face, stinging her eyes, but she stood braced against the center console, refusing to flinch. In her hands, she held an empty metallic thumb drive they had grabbed from Marcus’s safehouse—a decoy meant to buy them seconds.
"The lighthouse is half a mile out!" Marcus shouted over the deafening roar of the twin outboard engines and the howling squall. "Reyes has the high ground. He’s got snipers on the catwalk and Claymore mines along the breach points. This isn't a rescue mission, Clara—it's a suicide run if we go in blind!"
"My sons are in that tower!" Clara screamed back, her eyes burning with an unholy fury. "I was buried alive in this ocean once, Marcus! I clawed my way out of the bottom of the sea with Leo inside my womb! I am not leaving that rock without my boys!"
Marcus looked at her, seeing the absolute, fearless ferocity of a mother transformed into a weapon. He nodded grimly. "We don't dock at the pier. Reyes expects us there. We approach from the southern cliffside—the blind drop where the surf hits the rocks. We scale the rockface using the winch."
"Do it," she ordered.
Marcus cut the engines two hundred yards out, letting the momentum carry the black craft through the churning surf beneath the blinding rain. The beam of the decommissioned lighthouse swept across the black water, slicing through the storm like a glowing scythe.
Using a suppressed pneumatic launcher, Marcus fired a grappling hook into the jagged crags fifty feet above the crashing breakers. The titanium prongs bit into the granite with a dull *thud*.
"Hook yourself to my harness!" Marcus commanded.
Clara clicked the carabiner into place. Together, battered by the spray of the ocean that had once nearly claimed her life, they ascended the sheer cliff of Dead Man’s Shoal. Every muscle in Clara’s body screamed in agony, her fingernails tearing against the wet stone, but she pushed upward, fueled by pure, unadulterated mother's instinct.
As they crested the cliff’s edge, a shadow loomed out of the darkness.
A mercenary clad in black tactical gear raised a rifle.
Before the man could pull the trigger, Marcus lunged forward like a rabid animal, driving a combat knife up beneath the guard’s tactical vest. The man gasped, collapsing into the mud as Marcus eased him down without a sound.
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"One down," Marcus breathed heavily, grabbing the fallen guard’s assault rifle and handing Clara a compact 9mm sidearm. "Safety is off. Pull the trigger until the slide locks back. Understand?"
Clara racked the slide with steady hands. "Let's get my babies."
