Chapter 90 - The Red Dawn Protocol
Claire shifted her gaze through the raging snow to the jagged horizon below.
From the deep, snow-covered valleys surrounding Mount Yamantau, three massive reinforced silo hatches—hidden under centuries-old forest cover—slid back with the force of subterranean hydraulic rams. Towering plumes of superheated white steam and flame blasted upward into the freezing gray clouds, illuminating the snowy peaks in a nightmarish, hellish crimson glow.
The digital countdown in her tactical earpiece abruptly stopped.
*Launch initiated.*
"Julian didn't blow the generators," Arthur shouted through the storm, his face twisted in a triumphant, maniacal sneer. "Do you know why, Claire? Because in the end, Julian is a Montgomery. He understands self-preservation. He sold you out down there in the dark, just like Margaret sold you out in Virginia!"
Claire’s heart slammed against her ribs. "Julian..."
"He traded the detonator for his own life, Claire!" Arthur roared over the thundering sound of the missile boosters beginning their deep-earth ignition cycle. "The missiles are away! Target coordinates: Norfolk Naval Base, Strategic Command in Omaha, and the Pentagon! In forty-five minutes, the American military command structure ceases to exist! And the world will bow to the one who holds the shield!"
Claire’s finger tightened on the trigger of her sidearm. Her eyes were burning with cold, absolute finality.
*BANG.*
The round pierced the biting wind, striking Arthur Montgomery clean through the right shoulder. The master control transmitter was blasted from his grip, skittering across the icy concrete of the helipad toward the sheer edge of the cliff.
Arthur stumbled backward against the aircraft’s boarding ramp, clutching his bleeding shoulder, staring at his daughter in genuine, unadulterated shock. He had believed until the very last second that her soldier’s code, her bloodline, her filial bond would stay her hand.
He had miscalculated.
Claire advanced through the blizzard, her weapon leveled squarely at the center of his forehead. "You didn't forge me to inherit your throne, Arthur," she said, her voice cutting through the roar of the rotors like a death sentence. "You forged me to end it."
Before she could squeeze the trigger a second time, the interior cabin of the stealth aircraft lit up with interior amber lights.
A figure stepped from the shadows of the cockpit onto the ramp beside Arthur.
It was not a mercenary. It was not a Russian general.
The person was wearing an immaculate, tailored black wool overcoat, holding an executive encrypted briefcase handcuffed to their wrist, and looking down at Claire with a cold, aristocratic, and unmistakable smile that belonged in the highest ballrooms of Washington, D.C.
It was Margaret Montgomery.
Her mother—the woman who had publicly broken her, the woman who was supposed to be in federal solitary confinement in Virginia—stood on the ramp of the escape transport, perfectly composed, without a hair out of place.
"Did you really think your father worked alone, Claire?" Margaret said into the cabin’s external loudspeaker, her voice dripping with venomous, mocking triumph. "Arthur built the gun. But I was always the one who chose the targets."
Margaret reached down, grabbed Arthur by his uninjured arm, and hauled him backward into the aircraft cabin as the hydraulic ramp began to seal shut.
May you like
At the exact same instant, the ground beneath Claire's boots buckled violently as the first SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile erupted from the subterranean valley silo, tearing through the frozen sky toward the Atlantic, its blinding exhaust turning the storm into a furnace of fire.
Claire lunged forward across the ice, diving for the fallen master control transmitter lying on the precipice of the five-thousand-foot cliff, her hand grasping for the red abort toggle as the stealth aircraft lifted into the black, burning clouds—leaving her stranded on the edge of the world as the sky began to rain fire.
