Chapter 21 - The Skyline Extraction
The rotor wash of the black-ops helicopter whipped the rain into a blinding horizontal spray across the rooftop helipad of Vanguard Plaza. The cold metal deck vibrated with concussive force as Sarah Vance stood firm against the wind, her tactical rifle leveled directly at the disoriented security guards.
“Move! Now!” Sarah screamed over the deafening roar of the engines, gesturing frantically toward the open side cabin of the hovering aircraft.
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He grabbed my arm, yanking me up from the slippery concrete as the security guards scrambled to regain their footing against the massive aerodynamic downdraft. We scrambled across the wet helipad, diving headfirst into the cargo bay of the chopper just as the guards raised their rifles to return fire.
Sarah backed up smoothly behind us, laying down a precise, heavy wall of suppressive fire that shattered the guard’s front-line visor glass and forced them to dive behind the HVAC housing for cover. With a swift motion, she hooked herself onto the interior extraction line, pulled the cabin door shut, and slapped the pilot’s bulkhead panel twice.
The helicopter surged upward, banking hard into the low-hanging Manhattan clouds, leaving the towering glass-and-steel monolith of Vanguard Plaza far below.
Inside the dimly lit, insulated cabin, the roar of the engines faded to a steady, rhythmic thrum. I slumped hard against the aluminum bench seat, shivering from the freezing rain and the crushing weight of the adrenaline crash.
“Sarah...” I gasped, wiping slick rainwater and sweat from my forehead. “How did you find us? The last we heard, you were tracking Aegis accounts in Europe.”
Sarah pulled off her wet helmet, letting her dark hair fall around her shoulders, her expression carved from absolute stone. “When the international banking tribunal received Judge Harrison’s civil petition, it triggered a secondary monitoring proxy tied directly to my institutional terminal at the International Court of Justice. I saw David Sterling’s tactical sweep vectors targeting your Indiana safe house and your Manhattan infiltration profile simultaneously.”
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Ethan leaned forward, his face pale and tight with anxiety. “What about Judge Harrison and my father? The radio feed cut out right as Sterling’s men breached the depot.”
Sarah reached into her tactical vest pocket and pulled out a ruggedized satellite relay terminal, tossing it onto the metal console between us. “They’re alive. But barely.”
