Chapter 11 - The Tower Blind
Mark dropped instantly into the marsh water, pulling Rex down with his full weight. The mud swallowed his knees and chest, the freezing tidal brine soaking through his tactical pants. Above them, the wind screamed through the rusted iron girders of the seaplane crane, disguising the sound of their fall.
The laser dot hovered on the tuft of grass Mark had occupied a second earlier, remained stationary for three tense beats, and then began sweeping lazily back toward the access road. The sniper was cycling sectors every fifteen seconds.
Mark had eight seconds of dead space when the beam passed behind the rusted water tank.
"Rex, crawl," Mark breathed against the dog's neck.
Moving on their bellies through the black sludge, man and dog slid into the concrete drainage trough that ran beneath the perimeter fence. The concrete was slick with algae, but the culvert provided complete overhead cover from the tower's vantage point.
Mark emerged behind the auxiliary generator shed, forty feet from the medical tent. The heavy diesel generator was thumping loudly, sending vibrations through the mud, masking their footsteps completely.
Mark peered around the sheet-metal corner. The two guards outside the tent were dressed in high-end tactical outerwear, carrying suppressed submachine guns. They were private contractors, professional and disciplined, not street muscle. Their stances were wide, their eyes sweeping their assigned arcs.
Inside the tent, the mechanic was arguing with an individual wearing a tailored dark wool overcoat and carrying a silver briefcase.
"He's running out of time, Aris," the mechanic’s voice carried over the sound of the generator. "The casing is leaking. If we don't put him under and perform the incision now, the neuro-toxin will destroy his liver before we reach international airspace."
The man in the wool coat—Aris—spoke with a clipped European cadence. "The extraction flight does not leave with a dead package, Marcus. If the boy dies on this pier, you don't get the second half of the transfer code. Get your medic to stabilize him without cutting. We extract the capsule on the cruiser once we're beyond territorial waters."
"He won't survive the flight!" Marcus yelled, his gravelly voice rising. "He's just an eight-year-old kid!"
"He is an organic transport container chosen by his mother because she thought we wouldn't cut open a child," Aris said without a trace of emotion. "She was mistaken. You have ten minutes to pack him onto Helicopter Two, or I leave you both here for the authorities."
Mark pulled his sidearm from its holster, checking the chamber in the dark.
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His sister hadn't abandoned Leo. She had used him to hide the one thing that could destroy Aris's operation—and she had sent him directly to Terminal 3 because she knew Mark was the only officer on the floor who wouldn't look away.
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