Chapter 30 - The Final Gambit
The timer on the silo wall dropped into the red zone: **00:00:45... 00:00:44...**
"Daddy!" Maya screamed suddenly.
With all the strength in her seven-year-old body, she drove the jagged piece of scrap metal into the soft tissue of Alistair Kane's calf.
Kane roared in pain and shock, his aim instinctively jerking downward for a fraction of a second.
That fraction of a second was all Julian Vance needed.
Julian closed the distance like a thunderbolt. He slammed into Kane, his left hand deflecting the gun barrel toward the ceiling just as Kane pulled the trigger. The deafening gunshot blasted into the iron beams overhead. Julian’s right elbow smashed into Kane’s jaw with bone-crushing power, sending the old mastermind stumbling backward toward the edge of the catwalk.
Julian scooped Maya into his left arm with fierce, desperate tenderness, cutting her zip-ties with a flick of his blade. "I've got you, baby. Close your eyes."
"Daddy!" she sobbed into his neck, burying her face into his scorched vest.
Behind them, Kane spat blood, scrambling to his feet near the edge of the catwalk, his hand reaching for a remote detonator tucked inside his jacket pocket. A sinister, triumphant grin split his bloody lips.
"You think you won, Julian?!" Kane shrieked, his thumb hovering over the master trigger. "The whole facility is rigged! If I go down, the charges on the foundation blow, and five hundred tons of rock collapse on both of you! There is no way out!"
Julian drew his sidearm, pointing it squarely between Kane's eyes.
Kane’s thumb pressed the button.
A series of deafening explosions shook the base of the silo. The massive steel catwalk beneath their feet groaned and sheared off its bolts, tilting violently toward the three-hundred-foot abyss below. The blast doors above them began to slam shut one by one, sealing the daylight forever.
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As the iron platform collapsed into the dark void beneath a rain of falling granite and roaring fire, Julian leaped toward the dangling cable over the chasm, holding his daughter tightly against his heart—just as the radio in his ear crackled to life with a horrifying new voice.
*"Mr. Vance... if you survive this fall, you might want to know... Maya wasn't the only one we took."*
