Chapter 7 - Fire on the Waterfront
The sound of shattering glass and high-velocity rounds tearing through the bank lobby was deafening.
I tackled Marcus Vance to the linoleum floor behind the reinforced teller station just as a volley of rounds shredded the wooden counter above our heads.
Plaster dust, glass shards, and splintered oak rained down on us like shrapnel.
The branch manager was screaming from somewhere near the vault, crawling frantically toward the safety deposit stalls.
Through the ruined storefront, I caught a glimpse of two black tactical vans screeching to a halt across the street.
Masked men in unmarked gray combat fatigues poured out of the side doors, armed with suppressed short-barrel rifles.
These weren’t political fixers or private contractors with corporate lawyers.
This was a black-ops wet-work team sent to incinerate every shred of physical evidence and leave no survivors behind.
“They’re here to wipe the grid!” Marcus shrieked, pressing himself flat against the floor tiles, clutching his ears.
“Sterling gave the order!”
“Shut up and stay low!” I commanded, checking the magazine of my Sig Sauer.
I had eleven rounds left in the weapon and one spare magazine in my utility pouch.
Against six fully armored shooters with automatic rifles, those odds were mathematically fatal in an open firefight.
I grabbed the rusted metal lockbox, shoved the hard drive and Jonah’s logbook into my tactical vest beneath my dress tunic, and zipped it tight against my chest.
A smoke grenade clattered through the shattered window, hissing thick, white phosphorus smoke that instantly blinded the lobby.
The first shooter breached the doorway, his weapon sweeping the reception area with disciplined, deliberate movements.
I didn’t wait for him to clear the counter.
I rolled from behind the teller station, came up on one knee, and fired two rounds through the drywall directly beneath his chest rig.
The shooter gasped, staggered backward, and collapsed onto the glass-strewn floor with a heavy thud.
I lunged forward, grabbed his fallen carbine by the sling, and dragged it back into cover just as a wall of suppressive fire pulverized the counter.
The wooden paneling disintegrated into kindling above my head.
“Rear exit!” I shouted at Marcus, grabbing him by the collar of his suit jacket and dragging him violently toward the emergency corridor.
“The back door opens into the alley behind Rosecrans!”
Marcus was hyperventilating, his eyes rolled back in terror, but the raw instinct for survival forced his legs to move.
We kicked through the emergency exit door, triggering a shrieking alarm that echoed down the narrow brick alleyway.
The salty air of San Diego hit my face, mixed with the stench of burning rubber and diesel exhaust.
A second shooter was waiting at the end of the alley, raising his weapon to cut us down.
I brought up the captured carbine, flipped the selector switch to semi-automatic, and fired three controlled rounds into the center mass of his tactical vest.
The impacts knocked him flat onto the asphalt, giving us three seconds of daylight.
“My car!” Marcus gasped, pointing toward a silver sedan parked behind the dumpster.
“No!” I shouted.
“It’s probably rigged with a tracker or a remote charge!”
“Move toward the docks!”
We sprinted down the narrow urban corridor toward the Point Loma sportfishing marina, our footsteps pounding against the concrete.
Behind us, the sound of heavy boots pursuing through the alley told me the remaining four operators were closing the distance fast.
The marina docks stretched out before us, filled with hundreds of commercial charter boats, pleasure yachts, and maintenance skiffs bobbing in the tide.
Tourists and deckhands looked up in shock as two bloodied, soot-covered figures burst through the security gate onto the wooden pier.
“Evie!” a voice cried out from the end of Pier Four.
My head snapped toward the sound.
Docked at the final slip was a twenty-six-foot Boston Whaler belonging to the harbor patrol.
Standing on the stern deck, holding a marine flare gun in one hand and keeping Leo behind her back with the other, was my sister Maya.
Beside her stood an elderly man in faded blue naval coveralls with grease on his forearms.
Master Chief Caleb Miller—Jonah’s former crew chief and the only man in Coronado who still wore his dress blues with pride.
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“Get on the boat!” Maya screamed, waving her arm frantically toward the open slip.
I shoved Marcus Vance ahead of me down the wooden gangway as the first pursuing shooter rounded the marina office corner and opened fire on the dock.
