Chapter 17 - The Fall of the Gilded Cage
The crane shuddered as the sheared cable whipped through the air.
The red Cayenne dropped three feet, bouncing violently against the safety catch before arresting with a shriek of twisted metal.
Inside, Vanessa shrieked as the car tilted at a terrifying forty-five-degree angle over the abyss.
The two armed guards behind Marcus reacted instantly, raising their carbines toward the cliff where Maya was positioned.
Before their barrels could level, Jack dropped his cane, lunged behind the front wheel of his Bronco, and raised the .300 Win Mag.
He pulled the trigger twice.
The heavy match rounds tore through the loose shale, taking out both contractors before they could acquire Maya's position.
Marcus lay on his back in the gravel, gasping for air, clutching his shattered ribs where the whipping cable had struck him.
Jack rose, picking up his cane, and walked toward the edge of the pit.
The Cayenne was slipping.
The rear tires were off the ground, the chassis groaning under the shifting weight.
Jack walked past Marcus, who was groaning in agony on the stones.
Jack reached the driver-side door of the hanging SUV.
He gripped the handle and yanked it open.
Vanessa tumbled out onto the gravel, clutching Jack’s ankles, sobbing uncontrollably.
Her designer makeup was smeared into black streaks across her cheeks.
"Jack! Oh god, Jack, please!" she wailed, her hands trembling as they touched the cuff of his jeans.
"I didn't know! I swear to god I didn't know they were going to kill you!"
Jack stood completely still, looking down at the woman who had spent five years pretending to love him while trying to steal everything he owned.
"Get up, Vanessa," Jack said, his voice devoid of anger, pity, or warmth.
"Jack, please... let me come back," she begged, tears spilling over the cuts on her face.
"Marcus forced me! He threatened my family! We can sell the house, we can start over—"
Jack looked past her, toward the open horizon where the Pacific stretched into endless blue.
"The house is already sold, Vanessa."
She blinked through her tears, stunned. "What?"
"I signed Whisper Creek over to the Wounded Warrior Engineering Trust at sunrise," Jack told her quietly.
"Every square foot. The lab, the cliffs, the missile bunker."
"You... you gave away a forty-million-dollar estate?" she stammered, her voice hollow with disbelief.
"It was never mine," Jack said. "It belonged to the men who didn't make it back from Helmand."
Sirens wailed in the distance.
A convoy of black federal utility vehicles and state patrol cruisers swept around the lower canyon bend, their flashing red and blue lights painting the quarry walls in neon strokes.
Maya slid down the embankment, her rifle slung across her back, landing smoothly beside Jack.
She looked at Vanessa huddled in the dust, then looked at Marcus bleeding on the rocks.
"Feds are here," Maya said quietly.
"Good," Jack replied, handing her the .300 Win Mag. "Tell them Marcus has a lot to say about the Aegis Directorate."
Jack turned his back on Vanessa, on Marcus, and on the wreckage of the life they had tried to steal from him.
May you like
He walked toward the highway, each step of his titanium leg ringing clear and solid against the canyon stone.
***
