Chapter 8 - The Hunt in the Red Rocks
The staccato crack of automatic gunfire shattered the morning air.
Bullets chipped the rocks around our feet, sending lethal shards of stone flying.
I grabbed Camille and shoved her hard to the ground.
I yelled for Everett and Blake to run toward a cluster of massive red boulders.
We scrambled on our hands and knees as the helicopter circled like a predator.
These were not rescue workers; they were Marcus Vance's cleanup crew.
They had come to ensure the canyon did not leave any loose ends.
We dove behind a massive granite outcropping just as a second volley of bullets tore through the dirt.
My breathing was ragged, my muscles burning from the adrenaline.
I looked at Camille, expecting to see a terrified executive in shock.
Instead, she was calmly wrapping a torn piece of fabric tightly around her left arm.
A stray bullet had grazed her shoulder, but she was not making a sound.
She looked at me with cold, calculating eyes.
She said, "They are not just here to kill Everett."
I asked her what she meant.
Camille reached into the hidden lining of her waterproof jacket.
She pulled out a sealed titanium flash drive.
She confessed that she was not actually part of the Whitmore management team.
She was a private intelligence contractor hired by Everett's board of directors.
For two years, she had been secretly gathering evidence of Marcus Vance's illegal operations.
The drive contained offshore accounts, blackmail files, and the truth about my bridge collapse.
Vance did not just want Everett dead to take over the company.
He wanted Camille dead to destroy the only evidence that could ruin him.
Blake stared at her in shock, realizing his entire life was surrounded by spies and lies.
The sound of the helicopter changed as it hovered near the plateau.
They were fast-roping heavily armed mercenaries down to the ground.
We could not outrun trained killers in open terrain.
I pointed toward a narrow crevice in the rocks that led to an old abandoned copper mine.
It was our only chance to bottleneck them.
We sprinted across the open ground, bullets whistling past our ears like angry hornets.
We threw ourselves into the dark opening of the mine shaft just as the mercenaries reached the tree line.
I pushed them deep into the shadows of the cavern.
I turned back to look at the entrance, planning our defense.
Camille grabbed my arm, her face suddenly pale and slick with sweat.
She shoved the titanium flash drive into the palm of my hand.
May you like
She whispered that she was losing too much blood to keep running.
Then she pointed her own small handgun toward the entrance and said, "Leave me here."
