Chapter 10 - Crossfire
From atop the skeletal framework of the industrial crane, muzzle flashes cut through the dark night like miniature lightning bolts.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets chewed through the corrugated metal sides of the shipping containers behind them, kicking up clouds of rust and concrete dust.
Ryan pushed Olivia hard behind the reinforced steel chassis of an old freight car, drawing his Sig Sauer and firing two rapid shots upward toward the crane operator's position to suppress the shooter.
“Stay down! Do not move!” Ryan yelled over the roar of the wind.
He didn't wait for her reply. Utilizing the deep shadows between the rusted railcars, Ryan scrambled upward along the exterior ladder of an adjacent maintenance tower, using every ounce of his specialized marine reconnaissance training to maneuver out of the sniper’s field of view.
The firing stopped abruptly.
Through the howling wind, the heavy crunch of boots on gravel echoed from the other side of the freight car where Olivia was hiding.
“Mrs. Mercer, I presume?” a cold, clipped voice called out.
Ryan froze on the lower rungs of the tower ladder, peering through the gap between two railcars.
A tall man in a dark tactical suit and an unbuttoned overcoat stepped into the pool of halogen light. It wasn't one of Vance’s regular federal agents. It was a private operative wearing the unmarked tactical gear of the Apex Capital security division—the same syndicate enforcers who had attacked the villa.
The man grabbed Olivia by the arm, jerking her roughly to her feet and pressing the cold barrel of a suppressed pistol against the side of her head.
“Tell your brother to drop his weapon and walk out into the light right now,” the operative sneered, “or I’ll scatter your brains across this gravel before he can take another breath.”
Olivia gasped, her eyes wide with absolute terror as she stared directly across the platform at the dark tower where Ryan stood frozen in the shadows.
Ryan’s finger rested lightly on the trigger of his Sig Sauer. He lined up his front sight post precisely between the operative’s eyes, calculating the wind drift across the open rail yard.
A single microsecond of hesitation, and his sister would be dead.
May you like
And if he fired, the sniper on the crane above would immediately zero in on his position, ending them both before they could ever reach the federal prosecutors in Washington.
“Drop the gun, Commander!” the operative shouted, pressing the pistol harder against Olivia’s temple. “Drop it or she dies right now!”
