Chapter 43 - The Mother's Gambit
Vance opened fire immediately from behind the steel pedestal of the communication array.
Two rounds struck Richter directly in the center chest plate, the kinetic force staggering the massive operative back half a step, but the ceramic armor absorbed the impact. Richter didn't even flinch; his carbine came up and unleashed a three-round burst that shattered the concrete pillar Vance was sheltering behind. Concrete shards tore across Vance’s face, driving him back.
"Asset preservation is secondary to cipher retrieval," Richter said smoothly, advancing with mechanical precision. "Director Pendelton has authorized terminal extraction of the neural core if the host is non-viable."
They didn't just want Owen alive. If extraction proved difficult, they were authorized to harvest the bio-chip from the child's brain stem right here on the concrete floor.
A cold, primal rage, deeper than any fear Valentina had ever known, took possession of her.
"Matteo! NOW!" she screamed into the bunker’s intercom.
From the sub-level, the deafening roar of the ancient diesel turbine kicked to life with a violent shudder that shook the floorboards. The sudden surge of fifty-thousand volts hit the decayed wiring of the bunker.
Overhead, three industrial halogen floodlights, dry and overloaded, exploded in a shower of blinding sparks and shattering glass. The high-voltage conduit along the doorway ruptured, dropping live, thrashing cables directly onto the steel-reinforced threshold.
The nearest commando stepped onto the wet floor just as forty-eight hundred volts surged through the standing water. Blue lightning arced up his legs, detonating his tactical harness battery in an instant burst of flame and incapacitating him instantly.
Richter cursed, diving forward into a roll across the dry central dais to escape the electrified floor.
As he rose to one knee, Valentina was already moving.
She didn't run. She lunged.
In her right hand, she swung an eighteen-inch steel emergency crowbar she had ripped from the wall cabinet. With the full rotational momentum of her body, she brought the iron bar down against Richter’s weapon, knocking the carbine clean from his grip.
Before the towering operative could draw his sidearm, Valentina drove the sharpened pry-edge of the bar directly into the soft joint of his neck armor.
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Richter roared in agony as steel bit through flesh, blood spraying across the control console. He struck back with a heavy backhand that caught Valentina on the jaw, throwing her across the concrete floor. Her head struck the iron desk, spots of black blooming across her vision.
Owen’s shrill, terrified scream cut through the darkness.
