Chapter 9 - The Descent
"Get away from my husband!" Claire screamed over the roaring engine of the heavy armored van.
Michael spun around in shock, raising his rifle toward the vehicle just as Claire pulled the heavy trigger.
The grenade exploded directly beneath the wooden dock where Michael stood, sending splintered wood and seawater high into the air.
The massive blast knocked me violently to the ground, my ears ringing fiercely as a cloud of thick smoke covered the pier.
I scrambled to my feet, coughing and blindly searching through the debris for any sign of my wife.
The van screeched to a halt beside me, and the heavy metal side door swung open completely.
Claire leaned out, her gray maternity dress covered in dust, extending a shaking hand down toward me.
"Get in!" she ordered, her eyes burning with an intense, fierce determination I had never seen before.
I grabbed her hand and hoisted myself into the back of the van, pulling Mia inside right behind me.
"I thought you were in the bunker executing the cartel bosses," I yelled as the van sped away from the burning harbor.
"That was a looped video feed I created to distract the task force while I secured our escape route," Claire explained rapidly.
She tossed me a loaded shotgun from a massive duffel bag sitting on the metal floorboards of the van.
"I never betrayed you, Daniel, I was trying to dismantle the federal trap Michael had built around us," she confessed.
I looked at her, realizing she had carried the terrifying weight of this entire conspiracy completely alone for months.
"You should have told me," I said, feeling a deep, crushing wave of guilt for ever doubting her loyalty.
"You would have tried to fight them head-on, and they would have killed you," she replied, wiping a tear from her soot-covered cheek.
Suddenly, the heavy armored van violently lurched to the side as a barrage of high-caliber bullets shattered the reinforced back windows.
Three black federal pursuit SUVs were closing in fast behind us, their sirens wailing aggressively in the dark night.
"They tracked Mia’s GPS beacon!" Claire shouted, swerving the heavy van wildly through the narrow, empty city streets.
I grabbed the GPS device from Mia’s tactical vest and crushed it completely beneath the heel of my heavy boot.
I leaned out of the shattered back window, firing the shotgun precisely at the tires of the leading pursuit vehicle.
The SUV blew a front tire, violently flipping over and crashing heavily into a brick storefront in a shower of sparks.
Just as a sliver of hope began to rise in my chest, Claire suddenly screamed out in absolute, agonizing pain.
May you like
She slammed on the brakes, clutching her pregnant stomach as a pool of water soaked through her gray maternity dress.
"Daniel, the baby is coming right now!" she cried out, her face contorting in pure agony as the remaining SUVs boxed us in.
