Chapter 13 - Blood on the Basalt
The confined space of the lighthouse tower exploded with the metallic fury of ricocheting lead.
Marcus slammed the heavy iron door shut with his shoulder, throwing a rusty iron pry bar across the handles to wedge it against the frame.
A fraction of a second later, two high-caliber rounds punched straight through the outer iron skin, sending jagged curls of metal spiraling into the stone floor.
Sadie grabbed the steel ammunition box, clutching it against her chest as she retreated toward the curve of the spiral stairs.
"Who is out there?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the ringing echoes of gunfire.
"Victor didn't run this alone, remember?" Ronan said, his face transforming into a mask of pure, lethal concentration.
He drew his heavy automatic pistol, checking the magazine with a sharp flick of his wrist.
"The Providence syndicate has private security cutters stationed along the state line.
They knew Victor was failing, so they moved to clean up the loose threads before the federal warrants could be processed."
A heavy thud shook the iron door as someone slammed a breaching charge against the outer hinge.
"Marcus! Take the spiral stairs to the third observation slit!" Ronan barked, his eyes scanning the narrow entry hall.
"Keep their heads down on the landing! Sadie, stay behind the masonry pillar!"
"I'm not sitting here like a package waiting to be collected," Sadie said, her eyes blazing with sudden, dangerous fury.
She set the heavy ammo box down behind the iron stairs, picked up the steel crowbar Ronan had used to breach the lock, and stepped to the edge of the stair landing.
"The third slit has a blind angle over the north path," Sadie warned, speaking with the rapid, tactical fluency of someone who knew the shoreline like the back of her hand.
"If they come up the cliff path, they have to cross twelve feet of bare basalt with no cover from above."
Ronan glanced at her, a flash of fierce respect cutting through his tension.
"Marcus, you heard her! Cover the bare basalt!"
A deafening explosion tore the heavy iron door completely off its rusted frame, filling the base of the tower with black smoke, powdered stone, and the stinging odor of chemical explosives.
Through the haze, three figures in black tactical gear and Kevlar vests surged into the breach, their submachine guns raised to clear the corners.
Ronan fired three rapid shots from behind the stone pillar, the heavy rounds dropping the first man instantly in the smoke.
The second shooter sprayed the stairwell with nine-millimeter rounds, the copper jackets sparking furiously against the cast-iron steps.
Sadie didn't hesitate.
As the second man advanced past the base of the pillar to flank Ronan’s position, she stepped from the darkness beneath the stair curve and brought the heavy steel crowbar down across his extended weapon with savage, desperate force.
The impact jarred the gun from his grip, the submachine gun clattering across the concrete floor into the dark cistern below.
Before the man could draw a sidearm, Ronan lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into the man’s chest and driving him against the granite wall with bone-shattering force.
A single, precise strike from Ronan’s pistol grip left the attacker motionless on the floor.
From the observation slit forty feet above, Marcus opened fire with his rifle, the rhythmic bark of his weapon echoing down the cylinder of the tower.
Two high-pitched shouts from the exterior landing signaled that the approach path was pinned down.
"More are coming from the lower cove!" Marcus yelled down through the stairwell.
"They're setting incendiary charges on our launch at the pier!"
"They want to burn the boat and leave us trapped on the rock," Ronan grunted, wiping a smear of soot and blood from his eyes.
He turned to Sadie, grabbing the handle of the ammunition box.
"There’s an old emergency dinghy in the auxiliary sea cave on the western face," Sadie said, breathing hard, her knuckles white around the bloody crowbar.
"Julian showed it to me when Poppy was two months old.
It’s an inflatable hull with a compressed gas cylinder hidden under the false rock shelf."
Ronan stared at her, his jaw tightening with grim determination.
"Then we don't wait for Marcus’s rifle to run dry.
Lead the way."
Sadie turned toward the rear of the tower, where an ancient iron ladder plunged forty feet straight down into the sea cave carved out by the ocean swells.
She didn't wait for him to assist her; she slung the strap of the ammunition box over her shoulder and began descending into the darkness, step by step, into the roaring breath of the subterranean tide.
Ronan fired two suppressive rounds through the shattered doorway to keep the remaining syndicate shooters pinned on the gravel path.
"Marcus! Disengage and take the ladder!" Ronan roared into the echoing tower.
"We move on the water!"
Marcus dropped from the stairs, his empty magazine hitting the floor with a hollow clatter as he reloaded on the fly.
They scrambled down the rusted rungs as two fragmentation grenades exploded in the upper landing, raining shattered iron and stone down the shaft behind them.
At the bottom, the sea cave was a roaring cauldron of black water and white foam, surging with the rising noon tide.
Sadie was already on the narrow rock ledge, her hands tearing away a rotting canvas tarp to reveal the sealed rubber capsule of a military survival craft.
She located the yellow emergency lanyard and yanked it with every ounce of strength in her body.
With a terrifying hiss of high-pressure carbon dioxide, the heavy black rubber raft expanded against the stone walls, floating instantly on the surging swell.
"Get in!" Sadie shouted over the thunder of the waves crashing against the cave mouth.
Marcus leaped into the bow, his rifle scanning the narrow opening where the gray sky met the sea.
Ronan caught Sadie by the waist, swinging her aboard as the backwash pulled the raft toward the light, then tumbled in behind her.
Sadie grabbed the twin wooden paddles from the floorboards, thrusting one into Ronan’s hands.
"Row!" she yelled, her eyes wild with adrenaline and the primal instinct to survive.
"If the swell catches us sideways against the cave teeth, we split like an egg!"
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Together, their muscles straining against the fury of the Atlantic, they dug the blades into the frothing brine, driving the black raft through the mouth of the cavern just as a volley of rifle fire chipped the granite archway above their heads.
Out on the open water, the rising gale took them, tossing the raft like a cork on the immense gray swells, carrying them away from the burning lighthouse and back toward the contested shores of Ashport.
