Chapter 19 - Fire on the Mountain
The study instantly transformed into a killing zone. Stray rounds chewed through expensive oil paintings, shattered crystal decanters, and starred the reinforced glass wall overlooking the precipice.
“We’ve got incoming from the main corridor!” Brock shouted, returning fire with his pistol through the open doorway, his hands steady this time, guided by raw survival instinct.
“Reed, hold the door!” Avery ordered, pivoting around the edge of the leather armchair. He saw Marcus scrambling toward a private service elevator set into the rear rock wall of the study, clutching the cold-storage drive in his fist.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Avery muttered, pushing off the floor and sprinting across the open room.
Marcus punched the elevator call button frantically as the doors slid open. Just as he stepped inside, Avery lunged forward, catching the edge of the closing door with his boot and jamming his arm into the gap.
With a sharp grunt of pain as the heavy steel mechanism crushed against his tactical sleeve, Avery forced the doors back open, tumbling inside the elevator car right on top of Marcus.
The two men crashed hard against the polished metal floor of the lift car. Marcus swung a heavy iron flashlight at Avery’s face, catching him across the cheekbone and sending a spray of warm blood across the shiny interior panels.
Avery shook off the blow, retaliating with a sharp, brutal right hook that connected squarely with Marcus’s jaw. The impact sent a satisfying crunch through the small space. Marcus grunted, his grip loosening on the black storage drive as it slid across the metal floor.
“You’re finished, Marcus,” Avery breathed heavily, pinning his former commander against the control panel with his forearm pressed hard against his throat. “The game is over.”
“You think... you think this is about one drive?” Marcus choked out, a bloody, defiant grin twisting his lips even as he gasped for air. “Look outside, Captain... Look at the valley.”
Avery glanced past the glass wall of the descending elevator shaft.
Far below, winding up the steep mountain switchback road through the blinding snowstorm, a convoy of three black armored SUVs bearing unbadged military insignia was rapidly approaching the lower security gates of the Adler’s Nest.
“Reinforcements,” Avery realized instantly.
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“They didn’t send me here to buy files,” Marcus laughed weakly, his eyes gleaming with mad triumph. “They sent me here to draw you out. The entire syndicate knew you’d follow us to Zurich. This whole chalet... is rigged.”
Before Avery could process the warning, a dull, subterranean roar shook the entire mountain face.
