“We’ll give you time,” I said.
I turned to Maya. She was watching the chaos with a calm that was haunting. She walked over to me and took my hand.
“Jax? Are you going to be okay?”
I knelt down and pulled her into a hug. “I’m an old dog, Maya. I’ve got a few tricks left. I want you to go with Hammer. He’s going to take you to the ‘Vault’—it’s a room under the floorboards made of reinforced concrete. You stay there. You don’t come out until I come get you. Do you understand?”
“But I want to stay with you,” she sobbed, the first cracks in her armor appearing.
“You are with me,” I said, touching the silver pin on her chest. “Every second. Now go. Be the brave princess your dad knew you were.”
Hammer stepped forward and gently picked her up. As he carried her away toward the back of the hall, she watched me over his shoulder until she disappeared through the heavy steel door.
I felt a cold, hard clarity take over. I walked to the gun rack and picked up a customized M1A Scout rifle. I checked the action, slapped in a twenty-round mag, and slung it over my shoulder.
“Positions!” Mike bellowed.
I walked out onto the porch. The night was eerily quiet now. The hundreds of bikes had been moved behind the stone walls to act as secondary cover. The brothers were stationed on the ridge, in the watchtowers, and behind the gate.
In the distance, I saw the first sign of the enemy.
A line of black SUVs and armored BearCat vehicles appeared on the horizon, their lights off. Above them, the sky was filled with the low, ominous thrum of blacked-out helicopters. They were moving in a pincer formation, cutting off every exit from the valley.
I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, the flame steady in my hand.
“Here they come,” I muttered.
The lead BearCat stopped three hundred yards from the gate. A loudspeaker crackled to life, the voice amplified and distorted.
“This is a state-authorized tactical unit! You are harboring a kidnapped minor and are in possession of stolen government property! Release the child and surrender your weapons immediately! You have sixty seconds to comply!”
Big Mike stepped out next to me. He held a megaphone to his lips.
“We don’t recognize your authority, and we don’t negotiate with traffickers!” Mike roared. “The girl stays here! The truth stays here! If you want them, come and get ’em!”
The sixty seconds passed in total silence.
Then, the world exploded.
A flash-bang grenade landed in the center of the yard, followed immediately by a barrage of tear gas canisters. But we were ready. We had gas masks distributed an hour ago.
The first wave of Unity Group mercenaries moved forward under the cover of the gas. They were moving in “stack” formations, using ballistic shields. They thought they were dealing with a bunch of unorganized bikers.
They were wrong.
“Now!” I yelled.
From the ridge above, the brothers opened fire. It wasn’t the chaotic spray of street thugs; it was disciplined, overlapping fields of fire. The “Iron Fortress” had been designed for exactly this.
The mercenaries were caught in a kill zone. I saw the sparks of bullets hitting their shields and body armor. They tried to retreat, but the ground behind them was suddenly illuminated by “dragon’s breath” rounds fired from the watchtowers, turning the grass into a wall of flame.
I raised my M1A, sighted through the Leopold glass, and waited for a gap in the shields. I saw a mercenary trying to set a breaching charge on the gate. I took a breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
The rifle kicked against my shoulder. The mercenary went down, the charge exploding prematurely and taking out the gate’s hinges—but also the two men standing next to it.
The gate was down, but the breach was filled with the wreckage of the SUVs. It created a natural bottleneck.
“Fall back to the second line!” Mike ordered.
We retreated from the porch into the main yard, using the bikes and the stone planters as cover. The helicopters were hovering low now, their snipers firing down into the yard.
“Dave! How much longer?” I screamed into my radio.
“Seventy percent! Sterling’s people are trying to hack the upload! I’m fighting them off, but they’re flooding the bandwidth!”
“Hold the line!” I shouted to the brothers.
The fighting was intense. The air was thick with the smell of cordite, ozone, and burning rubber. I saw brothers go down—men I’d known for years—but no one wavered. They fought with a ferocity that seemed to stun the mercenaries.
Then, the heavy stuff arrived.
A humvee with a mounted .50 caliber machine gun rolled toward the breach. If that thing started firing, our cover would be turned into Swiss cheese in seconds.
“I’ve got it!” a voice yelled.
It was Preacher. He had survived the cabin explosion and made it to the fortress in the middle of the night. He was perched on the roof of the hall with a shoulder-mounted RPG-7—a relic from his days in ‘Nam that he’d kept oiled and ready for forty years.
WHOOSH.
The rocket streaked across the yard, trailing a tail of white smoke. It hit the humvee dead center. The vehicle flipped into the air, a ball of twisted metal and fire.
The mercenaries paused. They hadn’t expected this level of resistance. They were used to bullying civilians and hitting soft targets. They weren’t prepared for a brotherhood that had nothing left to lose.
But they weren’t done.
From the helicopters, fast-ropes dropped. Men in black jumped onto the roof of the Great Hall.
“They’re on the roof!” I yelled.
I turned and ran back toward the hall. I couldn’t let them get inside. Maya was in the Vault, but if they took the hall, they’d find the servers. They’d stop the upload.
I burst through the side door and headed for the stairs. Two mercenaries were coming down, their suppressed weapons spitting lead. I felt a hot sting in my shoulder, but I didn’t stop. I fired from the hip, the .308 rounds tearing through the banister and the men behind it.
I reached the server room. Dave was slumped over the keyboard, blood pooling on the desk. He’d been hit by a stray round through the window.
“Dave!” I lunged for him.
He was still breathing, but barely. He pointed to the screen with a trembling finger.
98%… 99%…
“Almost… there…” Dave whispered.
I looked at the monitor. The progress bar was crawling. Outside, I heard the sound of heavy boots on the roof directly above us. They were preparing to blow the ceiling.
I grabbed Dave’s pistol and aimed it at the door. “Come on, you bastards,” I hissed.
100%. UPLOAD COMPLETE. BROADCASTING TO GLOBAL SERVERS.
A chime echoed through the room. At that same moment, every monitor in the hall—and likely every newsroom in the country—began to play the files.
The ceiling exploded.
Dust and debris rained down. I saw the silhouettes of the commandos dropping through the hole. I opened fire, emptying my mag into the smoke. I heard screams, the clatter of dropped weapons.
But there were too many of them. A flash-bang went off right in front of me. The world turned white. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out the sound of the battle.
I felt hands grabbing me, throwing me against the wall. A boot hit my ribs.
“Where is the drive?” a voice demanded. It was the man in the wool coat—the Handler. He was covered in soot, his face twisted in a mask of pure hatred. He held a pistol to my forehead.
I spat blood on his boots. I started to laugh—a dark, wet sound.
“You’re too late,” I wheezed. “It’s out. Everyone knows. Your boss is done. You’re done.”
The Handler looked at the monitor. He saw the face of Senator Sterling on the screen, captioned with the words HUMAN TRAFFICKING LEDGER REVEALED.
He screamed in rage and pulled the hammer back on his gun.
“Then you’re coming with me to hell,” he hissed.
BANG.
The shot echoed through the room. But I didn’t feel any pain.
I opened my eyes. The Handler was staring at his chest. A small, neat hole had appeared in his wool coat. He slumped forward, falling onto the floor.
Behind him stood Maya.
She was holding my Smith & Wesson .45 with both hands. Her arms were shaking, her face was covered in tears, but her eyes were steady. She had crawled out of the Vault when she heard the explosion.
“Stay away from my dad,” she whispered.
I scrambled to my feet and pulled her into my arms. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Outside, the gunfire was dying down. I heard sirens—real
