Chapter 50 - Father and Son in the Crossfire
The Zodiac slammed against the rubber pontoon of Charles’s disabled raft with a hollow, rubbery thud that sent spray flying in all directions. The impact threw one of the unbadged security operatives overboard into the freezing water, where he sank beneath the surface without a sound, swallowed instantly by the black depths of the lake.
Marcus kept our bow wedged firmly against their gunwale, his carbine leveled squarely at the chest of the remaining operative, who threw his hands up in immediate surrender.
In the center of the boat sat Charles Hayes.
The man who had built a domestic empire on the backs of forged signatures, manipulated family loyalty, and treasonous data sales looked decades older than he had an hour ago. His face was pale, his lips blue from the mountain chill, and his hands trembled as he clutched a heavy, encrypted aluminum briefcase against his chest like a shield.
"Ethan... Marcus..." Charles whispered, his voice cracking as the searchlight from the hovering helicopter above bathed us in blinding white brilliance. "Don't be fools. Let me take the transport. If I go down, the entire financial architecture of this family collapses into dust. Chloe... Chloe will spend the rest of her life in a federal penitentiary."
"Chloe is already paying for your crimes, Charles," I said, stepping across the gunwale and landing heavily inside their swaying boat. The floor was slick with water and engine oil. "And you're going to answer for every single one of them."
I reached down, grabbing the handle of the aluminum briefcase. Charles instinctively tried to pull it back, his fingers digging into the reinforced latch with surprising strength for a man his age.
"You don't understand what you're holding!" Charles screamed over the deafening roar of the overhead helicopter rotors. "This isn't just money! This is the kill-switch for the entire eastern and western naval defense grids! If you open this case without the cryptographic handshake, it triggers an automated dead-man’s switch that broadcasts every classified asset coordinate to every hostile intelligence agency on the planet!"
"Then we let it burn," Marcus said coldly from the helm of our raft, keeping his weapon trained on the sky above.
Suddenly, the helicopter dropped sharply, its landing skid clearing the pine trees by barely twenty feet. A heavy-duty steel winch cable dropped from its belly with a loud mechanical clatter, splashing into the water just ten yards away from our position.
On the end of the cable hung a heavy tactical extraction harness.
"They're coming to pull him out," Marcus warned, tracking the cockpit through his scope. "Ethan, we have seconds!"
Charles gave a sudden, desperate wrench, using the momentum of the rocking boat to shove me backward toward the edge of the pontoon. Before I could regain my footing, he lunged toward the dangling extraction harness, grabbing the steel ring with both hands and screaming into his satellite headset:
*"Now! Haul me up! Haul me up now!"*
May you like
The winch motor shrieked with violent acceleration, yanking Charles off his feet and pulling him rapidly into the air as the heavy-lift helicopter surged upward toward the dark, starless mountain sky.
***
