Chapter 9 - The Gunpoint Stalemate
The cold steel of the secondary pistol pressed harder against the base of my skull, sending a spike of pure, crystalline adrenaline rushing through my veins.
“I told you, Captain, you’re out of your depth,” Marcus said, his confidence instantly flooding back as he stepped away from the console and picked up his satellite phone again. He didn't look worried anymore; he looked like a man who held all the winning cards in a rigged game.
I kept my grip on my service pistol, my finger resting lightly along the frame, waiting for the microscopic shift in weight that would give me an opening.
“Who’s your friend, Marcus?” I asked smoothly, keeping my voice entirely devoid of fear. “Another rent-a-cop from Apex Maritime who thinks a pension is worth a life sentence in Leavenworth?”
“More like a senior officer who realizes the old guard is finished,” a familiar voice answered from behind me.
The pressure at the back of my head lifted slightly as the operative shifted his stance. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the man holding the weapon. It wasn't an anonymous mercenary.
It was Commander Eric Vance—Marcus’s chief of staff, and one of the most decorated tactical planners in the Pacific Fleet.
“Eric,” I murmured, shaking my head in quiet disgust. “You were part of the inner circle. You signed off on the readiness audits.”
“I signed off on a fleet that was rotting from the inside out while Washington bureaucrats slashed our budgets,” Eric spat, his grip tightening angrily on his sidearm. “You think a clean uniform and a stack of paperwork keeps this country safe, Captain? It takes hard currency, hard gear, and men willing to look the other way so the machine keeps running.”
“By stealing from the very troops standing on the parade field this morning?” I challenged.
Before Eric could answer, the steel door of the control shack was violently kicked off its hinges with an explosive crash.
General Thomas Vance stood in the doorway, his service rifle leveled dead-center at his own brother’s chest.
“Drop the weapon, Eric. And step away from her,” General Vance commanded, his voice carrying the terrifying, absolute thunder of a three-star general who had just discovered his own family was rotting from the inside out.
Marcus flinched, staring down the barrel of his brother’s rifle. “Tom... don't be a fool. You pull that trigger, you destroy the family name forever.”
“The family name was already dragged through the mud the moment you traded a sailor’s life for a offshore bank account,” General Vance replied, his finger tightening incrementally on the trigger. “Drop it. Now.”
Eric hesitated, his eyes darting between General Vance and me, calculating the impossible geometry of the standoff.
May you like
And in that fraction of a second of hesitation, I dropped flat onto the metal floor, swept my leg hard across the threshold, and kicked Eric’s ankles out from under him, sending his pistol clattering across the deck as gunfire erupted around us.
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