Chapter 37 - Blood and Salt
The courier reacted instantly, dropping the case and reaching for an automatic sidearm beneath his parka.
He never cleared the leather.
My father’s sniper round took him clean through the right shoulder from the roof of the hangar, the supersonic crack echoing off the sheet-metal walls. The courier collapsed into the slush with a strangled cry.
"Ambush!" the man in the camel coat yelled, ducking back into the safety of the jet’s doorway. "Kill them! Get the engines to full thrust!"
The two guards at the foot of the stairs raised automatic assault rifles, spraying a devastating hail of fire toward our position. Luca shoved me violently behind a reinforced steel maintenance cart as bullets chewed through the metal, sending sparks and ricochets screaming into the night.
"Clara, stay down!" Luca shouted.
"Not a chance!" I yelled back.
From my low angle, I could see the reflection of the runway floodlights on the wet tarmac beneath the jet's fuselage. One of the shooters had stepped forward to flank Luca, his lower legs entirely exposed.
I dropped flat into the freezing slush, rolled out from behind the steel cart, and fired three rapid shots at his kneecaps. The guard screamed as the hollow points found their mark, his legs giving out beneath him. As he fell, Luca leaned over the top of the cart and placed a finishing shot through his chest plate.
The Gulfstream's jet engines roared into a deafening, terrifying crescendo. The pilot was attempting to taxi directly onto the runway without tower clearance.
"They're going to take off!" Mrs. Moretti shouted from our left, firing a burst from her weapon that shattered the cockpit window, forcing the pilot to duck.
"Lorenzo!" Luca bellowed into his radio. "Take out the front gear!"
High on the hangar roof, Lorenzo Carbone didn't miss. A heavy .50 caliber anti-material round ripped through the sleet, smashing through the jet’s nose-gear hydraulic assembly with the force of an artillery shell. Metal shrieked. Hydraulic fluid sprayed out like a severed artery, and the nose of the multi-million-dollar aircraft collapsed forward, grinding across the frozen asphalt in a massive shower of white-hot sparks before screeching to a dead stop.
The remaining security team was neutralized within seconds by the arriving Carbone Phoenix squad.
Luca and I bounded up the metal boarding stairs, our weapons raised.
The jet's cabin was luxurious—leather recliners, polished walnut trim, and fine champagne resting in crystal flutes. Standing at the end of the aisle, holding the aluminum flight case in front of him like a shield, was the man in the camel coat.
May you like
His face was bleeding from a shard of shattered cabin glass. But it wasn't his blood that made Luca freeze in his tracks.
It was the man's identity.
