Chapter 9 - The Final Betrayal
“NO!” Liam screamed.
Greed, absolute and uncontrollable, shattered Liam Vance’s iron discipline.
For a fraction of a second, the man who had controlled nations from the shadows lost his mind. He shoved Victoria violently to the ground and lunged forward, his eyes locked on the tiny silver drive arcing through the rotor wash.
That fraction of a second was all Alexander and Elena needed.
*Crack!*
Elena’s Glock barked once. The 9mm round struck the detonator in Liam’s hand, shattering the plastic casing and severing his thumb in a shower of sparks and blood. The dead-man switch dropped harmlessly into the damp grass, disarmed.
Simultaneously, Alexander engaged the three contractors.
He didn't fire in bursts; he fired with rapid, surgical precision. The first contractor took two rounds to the chest and dropped. The second swung his weapon toward the terrace, but Alexander’s third round pierced the man’s tactical helmet, dropping him instantly onto the lawn.
The third contractor panicked, breaking toward the helicopter’s open cabin.
From the wood line five hundred yards away, the sharp, thunderous report of a federal .50-caliber sniper rifle tore through the morning air. The contractor collapsed before he could touch the landing skid.
Liam howled in agony, clutching his shattered hand, his clothes soaked in rotor wash. Yet, through sheer monstrous willpower, his uninjured hand scooped the quantum drive from the grass where it had landed inches from the spinning tail rotor.
He scrambled toward the helicopter’s cockpit, dragging his broken body across the tarmac.
“I WIN, ALEXANDER!” Liam screamed through the roar of the engines, raising his revolver with a bloody hand. “I STILL WIN!”
He aimed the revolver directly at Elena’s heart.
Alexander sprinted across the lawn, but he was thirty yards away—too far to close the distance before Liam pulled the trigger.
Then came the unexpected.
From the grass beneath the landing gear, Victoria surged upward.
Her hands were still zip-tied behind her back, her face bloodied and covered in mud, but her eyes blazed with a desperate, feral rage. She threw her entire body weight against Liam’s knees, tackling the six-foot-two Scotsman to the ground just as his gun fired.
The bullet ripped harmlessly into the earth.
“You ruined my life!” Victoria shrieked, kicking wildly at Liam’s face with her high-heeled shoes. “You ruined everything!”
Liam snarled, striking Victoria across the temple with the heavy steel barrel of the gun. She went limp, collapsing unconscious onto the grass.
Liam scrambled to his feet, turning to raise the gun one last time.
He was too late.
Alexander was already there.
Alexander grabbed the barrel of the revolver, twisting it out of Liam’s grip with enough force to snap the remaining fingers of his left hand. In the same motion, Alexander drove his shoulder into Liam’s sternum, driving the older man hard against the fuselage of the helicopter.
Liam gasped for air, pinned against the metal, his face inches from Alexander’s.
“Alexander...” Liam choked out, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “I made you what you are. Without me, you’re just a boy playing with your father’s toys.”
Alexander reached down and ripped the silver quantum drive from Liam’s clenched fist.
“You didn't make me, Liam,” Alexander said, his voice as cold as absolute zero. “My father did.”
Alexander drove a devastating right hook into Liam Vance’s jaw.
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The architect of the Iron Consortium slumped to the grass, completely unconscious, as the tactical flashbangs and sirens of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team finally flooded the south lawn.
***
