Chapter 18 - Maya’s Reckoning
The high-caliber sniper round tore through the heavy velvet curtains, missing Eleanor’s head by less than two inches and obliterating an eighteenth-century marble bust behind her.
Before the sound of the rifle report even reached the room, the heavy oak doors blew inward. Maya Cruz moved like a panther, diving across the floor, tackling Eleanor’s wheelchair and flipping it backward into the fortified alcove beside the stone fireplace.
"Sniper at two o'clock! Three hundred yards out in the tree line!" Maya barked into her throat mic, drawing two sidearms simultaneously.
"Victoria, get behind the desk! Now!" Alexander shouted, lunging into the room with an automatic rifle, dragging Victoria by her collar behind a three-ton mahogany desk as a hail of suppressed gunfire raked the salon walls.
Plaster exploded like shrapnel. Priceless oil paintings were ripped into ribbons.
Through the shattered terrace doors stepped four figures clad in gray urban-camo gear, carrying short-barreled submachine guns. Leading them was a man whose presence made Maya’s blood turn to liquid nitrogen.
He was tall, lean, with a jagged scar running from his left temple down across his throat, wearing the insignia of a retired United States Special Forces Major.
"Major Gabriel Kane," Maya muttered, her teeth grinding together. Her former commanding officer from the CIA's special activities division. The man who had sold out her entire recon unit in the mountains of Kandahar six years ago.
"Hello, little shadow," Kane said, his voice flat, devoid of humanity. "Lord Julian pays fifty million for the Vance matriarch. Stand down, Maya. You were always a brilliant soldier, but you were never willing to cross the final line."
"The difference between you and me, Kane," Maya said, stepping out from behind the stone pillar, her pistols leveled with surgical stillness, "is that you sold your soul for a numbered account. I kept mine."
Kane fired instantly.
Maya didn't flinch. She pivoted on her heel, dodging the incoming trajectory by a fraction of a second, firing three rapid rounds that dropped Kane’s left-flank operator instantly. She closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, weapon-checking Kane’s submachine gun upward as a spray of 9mm rounds carved into the fresco ceiling.
What followed was a masterclass in lethal close-quarters combat.
Maya drove her elbow into Kane’s throat, followed by a vicious knee strike to his ribs. Kane absorbed the blow with unnatural resilience, swinging the heavy stock of his weapon across Maya’s jaw. The impact split her lip, sending blood splattering across the Persian rug.
Maya stumbled back, tasting copper, but her counter was instantaneous. She caught his follow-up punch, twisted his wrist until the joint popped with an audible snap, and drove a thumb directly into his left eye socket.
Kane roared in agony, dropping his weapon. He pulled a combat serrated bowie knife from his chest rig, slashing wildly. Maya ducked under the blade, swept his remaining good leg with a brutal low kick, and as he hit the hardwood floor, she locked his neck into a reverse figure-four chokehold.
"You left twelve men to die in the mountains, Gabriel," Maya whispered into his ear, her grip tightening like a hydraulic press. "This is for them."
Kane thrashed, his face turning purple, his hands clawing uselessly at Maya’s Kevlar sleeves. With a dry, sickening *crack*, his body went limp.
Maya released the corpse, rising to her feet, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her bruised hand. She turned back toward the shattered terrace.
Alexander emerged from behind the desk, rifle held at the ready. "Maya! Are you hit?"
"I'm fine," Maya breathed, her chest heaving. "Mother Eleanor?"
"Unscratched," Eleanor’s calm voice resonated from behind the fireplace alcove. "Alexander... check the perimeter. Julian wouldn't send his best assassin alone unless it was a distraction."
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Alexander’s radio crackled with a frantic voice from the Manhattan central vault: *"Mr. Vance! An armed convoy just breached the Federal Reserve sub-level of Vance Tower! Julian Sterling is inside the primary vault!"*
***
