Chapter 13 - The Scorched Deck
The remote detonator was cold and heavy in Anna’s trembling palm.
She scrambled across the carpet, sliding on her knees beside Elena’s chair, her combat knife flashing as she sliced through the heavy zip-ties binding her sister's wrists and ankles.
"I've got you," Anna gasped, hauling Elena to her feet. "I've got you, you're okay!"
Elena threw her arms around Anna's neck, sobbing uncontrollably against her tactical vest. "Anna... oh god, Anna..."
Across the room, Julian Sterling was crawling across the blood-and-oil-slicked floor, clutching his ruined face, groaning in agony. Matteo stood over him, his boot pinning the director’s shoulder to the deck.
Matteo leaned down, his voice a low, terrifying whisper: "The retinal scan was never for money, Sterling. It was a kill-switch for the family's servers. The moment I looked into that lens, it initiated a total forensic purge of every Consortium account across the globe."
Sterling choked, blood bubbling from his mouth. "You... you destroyed... four billion dollars..."
"Four billion dollars of blood money," Matteo said coldly.
Suddenly, the ship's internal alarms blared with deafening intensity.
From the corridor outside, the heavy thunder of boots echoed against the steel stairs. The South African mercenary unit was advancing, alerted by the pressure drop in the hydraulic lines.
"We have to move!" Anna shouted, thrusting a spare pistol into Elena's hands. "Elena, stay behind me, keep your head down!"
Matteo picked up Sterling by his lapels, using the blinded, groaning director as a human shield as the first two mercenaries burst through the double doors with assault shotguns.
"Hold your fire!" a mercenary yelled in Afrikaans, seeing their employer in the line of fire.
That split-second hesitation was all Matteo needed. He hurled Sterling straight into the two guards, knocking them off balance, and fired a rapid burst through the tangle of limbs. Both mercenaries dropped instantly onto the blood-soaked carpet.
"To the crane!" Matteo roared, grabbing Anna and Elena and pushing them toward the bridge’s emergency wing door.
They burst out onto the open bridge wing, the freezing southern wind hitting them like a wall.
Sixty feet below, the dry dock floor was swarming with private contractors taking cover behind concrete barricades, their weapon lights sweeping the superstructure.
"They've cut the gangway!" Elena screamed, looking down at the drop.
Matteo looked up at the massive steel boom of the dry dock crane towering directly above the ship's bridge wing. A thick steel cargo cable hung from the winch, dangling just ten feet from the railing.
"Take Elena's waist!" Matteo commanded Anna, pulling a heavy carabiner and tactical tow-strap from his vest.
"Matteo, what are you doing?!" Anna shouted.
"We aren't taking the stairs," Matteo said, his eyes blazing with ferocious resolve.
May you like
He clipped the heavy steel carabiner around the crane's dangling steel cable, wrapped his powerful arms around both Anna and Elena, and kicked off the railing into the open air.
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