Chapter 51 - The Ghost Protocol
The heavy-lift helicopter climbed rapidly into the black expanse above Lake Tahoe, its navigation lights blinking a defiant red against the silhouette of the jagged granite peaks. Dangling beneath it like a broken pendulum was Charles Hayes, his white hair whipping wildly in the hurricane-force downdraft of the rotors as he clutched the encrypted aluminum briefcase tightly to his chest.
"He's making for the high-altitude pass," Marcus shouted over the screaming engine noise, slamming our Zodiac’s throttle all the way forward. "If he crosses the ridge into Nevada airspace, he reaches their private transit jet waiting at Carson Valley airfield. The data leaves U.S. soil forever."
"Not on my watch," I said, dropping back into the stern of our raft. I grabbed the heavy-duty grappling hook secured to our gunwale, its high-tensile steel cable coiled neatly around a motorized winch.
"Ethan, what the hell are you doing?" Marcus yelled, turning the wheel hard to match the helicopter’s ascending vector as it angled toward the canyon wall.
"We're boarding," I said, locking the heavy magnetic claw into the motorized launcher.
Before Marcus could argue, I raised the launcher, sighted up through the blinding white glare of the chopper's searchlight, and squeezed the trigger.
*THUMP.*
The pneumatic launcher hissed violently, driving the steel claw upward into the dark night sky. For a heartbeat, it looked like it was going to miss, falling short of the rising aircraft's belly. Then, with a sharp metallic clang, the magnetic prongs locked securely around the heavy-duty steel skid of the helicopter's landing gear.
The sudden tension nearly ripped the launcher out of my hands. The Zodiac jolted violently, the bow lifting almost vertical as our boat was dragged along in the wake of the ascending aircraft like a water-skier behind a speedboat.
"Hold on!" Marcus roared, fighting the steering column with every ounce of his strength to keep the lightweight raft from flipping over in the churning air currents.
I engaged the winch mechanism on the cable spool. The motor whined furiously, pulling my weight upward off the floor of the bouncing raft into the freezing, high-altitude wind. Hand over hand, foot over foot, I hauled myself up the vertical steel wire as the dark surface of Lake Tahoe shrank rapidly beneath me into a small, black mirror reflecting the stars.
Above me, hanging from the extraction harness, Charles looked down, his eyes widening in pure terror as he saw me climbing the cable toward him like a phantom from the deep.
"Ethan! Let go!" he shrieked, his voice tearing in the wind. "You're going to trigger the dead-man's switch! You're going to destroy everything!"
I reached the bottom skid of the helicopter, hauling myself onto the narrow metal tube with one hand while keeping my MPX slung securely across my back. With my free hand, I grabbed the heavy aluminum briefcase still clutched in Charles's grip.
"The mission is over, Charles," I shouted, my fingers locking around the handle of the case.
"You don't know what you're holding!" he screamed, his face purple from the cold and the G-force of the ascent. "The buyer isn't a foreign government... it's—"
Before he could finish the sentence, a sharp, metallic *click* echoed from inside the briefcase mechanism.
The LED status indicator light on the side of the aluminum case—which had been blinking a steady, ominous amber—suddenly turned a brilliant, solid crimson.
A high-pitched, digitized chime began to pulse from within the casing, accelerating with every passing second.
Charles froze, the color draining entirely from his face. "No... no, the auction timer... they didn't wait for the handshake..."
Through the cockpit window of the helicopter, the pilot turned his head, staring back at us through the reinforced glass with a cold, expressionless gaze. Then, with a single, deliberate motion, the pilot pulled a red emergency lever on the overhead console.
The extraction harness cable severed instantly with a loud pneumatic snap.
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Freefall.
For a fraction of a second, weightlessness consumed us as Charles and I plunged downward through the freezing mountain air, with the dark, jagged expanse of Lake Tahoe rushing up to meet us at terminal velocity, while the crimson light on the briefcase pulsed faster and faster, counting down to a silence from which no one would return...
