Chapter 37 - Ashes and Embers
Damon dropped Viper’s limp body onto the gravel. The mercenary was alive, but he would never hold a weapon again.
"Sarah," Damon called out.
The screen door creaked open. Sarah stepped down the porch stairs, the Glock lowered at her side. She looked at the bodies scattered across the yard, then up into Damon's eyes. She didn't flinch from the blood on his knuckles or the torn fabric of his tactical vest.
"Toby is in the vault," she said, her voice steady. "He's fine."
Damon closed the distance between them, reaching out with a trembling hand—the first time his hands had shaken all night—and touched her cheek. She leaned into his palm, closing her eyes for a single heartbeat, inhaling the scent of rain, sweat, and cordite.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I brought them here."
"You didn't bring them here, Damon," Sarah said, opening her eyes with fierce resolve. "They found us. And you stopped them. But this isn't over, is it?"
She looked out toward the lake, where the distant halogen lights cut through the drifting fog like twin daggers.
"No," Damon said. "Director Mercer is here. He’s running the command post from the old gravel dredge at the north inlet."
"Mercer?" Sarah’s face paled slightly. "He was supposed to be in The Hague. The committee was investigating Apex for the black-budget diversions in Syria."
"Mercer doesn't answer to committees," Damon said, kneeling down by one of the fallen operators to strip their tactical vest of ammunition and zip-ties. "He knows the investigation is closing in. He's liquidating every living asset that can link him to Apex. Kowalski was loose. I was the final signature on his kill-list."
"What do we do?" Sarah asked. "We can't stay here. The local authorities will be here in twenty minutes."
"The local authorities won't come," Damon said grimly. "Mercer owns the sheriff. He’s jammed the county emergency bands. Any 911 calls from this zip code are being rerouted to an Apex switchboard."
Damon bound Viper's limbs with heavy-duty zip-ties and dragged him to the base of an oak tree. Then he walked to the back of the cabin, toward the wooden dock where his small, fifteen-foot aluminum fishing boat was tied up.
Beneath the false bottom of the boat’s bench, where he usually kept tackle boxes and spare spark plugs, was a sealed Pelican case coated in cosmoline.
He unlatched the heavy plastic snaps.
Inside lay his personal kit from seven years ago: an integrally suppressed .300 Blackout carbine, four thermal smoke grenades, and a miniature tactical dive rebreather.
"Damon," Sarah stepped onto the wooden dock, the wind whipping her hair across her face. "You're going out there alone?"
"If I don't finish Mercer tonight, we spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders in grocery store parking lots," Damon said, his voice dropping into that deep, immovable gravel tone. "I took a vow when I married you, Sarah. Nobody touches this family. Nobody."
He pulled the rebreather over his chest and checked the oxygen tank pressure.
Sarah didn't try to stop him. She knew that trying to stop Ghost-Six when his family was threatened was like trying to halt a landslide with an open palm. Instead, she handed him two fresh magazines from her Glock.
"Make sure he doesn't get off that barge," she said coldly.
May you like
Damon took the magazines, slid them into his pouch, and slipped silently into the freezing, black waters of Clearwater Lake without making a single splash.
***
