"What is that?" Sybil asks, her eyes wide, tracking the blinking red light on the detonator.
"This house is a graveyard," I say, my voice turning completely dead. "It is where my father broke my mother. It is where he tried to break me. I wired the structural columns of this mansion with C4 five years ago, waiting for the perfect day to finally erase it from the earth."
I turn back to her, my pale eyes locking onto hers.
"Get your boots on, Sybil. We are leaving."
The sound of the helicopter grows deafening, the sheer force of the downdraft rattling the boarded-up windows, violently shaking the dust from the rafters. The chopper is hovering directly above the flat, reinforced section of the mansion's roof.
Sybil doesn't ask any more questions. The absolute, unyielding authority in my voice completely overrides her panic. She scrambles to the floor, shoving her bare feet into her mud-caked tactical boots. I grab my charcoal topcoat from the floor, throwing it over my uninjured shoulder, completely indifferent to the cold.
I grab the spare Glock from the nightstand, checking the magazine.
"Come here," I command.
She runs to my side. I wrap my right arm securely around her waist, pulling her tightly against my hip. I lead her out of the master suite, stepping over the fresh, bloody corpse of my brother on the landing without a single downward glance.
We reach the narrow, concealed servants' staircase that leads directly to the roof access hatch.
Suddenly, the heavy, metallic crash of the front doors being violently breached echoes up from the ground floor.
"Clear the foyer! Move! Move!" a harsh, tactical voice barks below.
It isn't Dante’s men. It is the unmistakable, highly coordinated shout of a federal SWAT team. Arthur Vance’s dead man's switch has finally brought the full, catastrophic weight of the United States government to my doorstep.
Sybil’s breath hitches, her fingers digging brutally into my side.
"Keep moving," I growl, pushing her up the narrow wooden steps.
I follow closely behind her, my gun aimed down the stairwell, completely ready to put a bullet through the skull of the first federal agent who rounds the corner. But the narrow servants' passage is hidden behind a false wall on the second floor; it will take them at least three minutes to find it.
Three minutes is an eternity.
Sybil reaches the heavy iron hatch at the top of the stairs. She pushes against it, but the rusted hinges refuse to give way.
"Thayer, it's stuck!" she cries over the deafening roar of the helicopter blades directly above us.
I step up behind her. I wedge my uninjured right shoulder against the iron plate. I grit my teeth, a feral snarl tearing from my throat as I throw the entire weight of my massive frame upward.
The rust shatters with a loudcrack. The hatch flies open, completely torn from its frame.
The violent, freezing wind of the storm immediately sucks the breath from my lungs. The torrential rain is blinding, whipping across the flat, tar-papered roof. Hovering less than ten feet above the surface is a massive, matte-black, completely unmarked Sikorsky helicopter. The side door is open, exposing the dark, heavily armed silhouette of my most trusted, entirely off-the-grid pilot.
A heavy, thick rope ladder drops from the open cabin, unrolling until it hits the wet roof.
"Climb!" I roar over the deafening mechanical thunder, shoving Sybil toward the ladder.
She grabs the thick ropes, her boots slipping on the wet rungs, but she hauls herself upward with a sheer, desperate strength born of pure survival. The pilot reaches down, grabbing her by the back of her heavy sweater, and drags her violently into the dark cabin of the chopper.
I am right behind her. I grab the ladder with my right hand, my left arm hanging completely useless against my chest. The pain in my shoulder is a blinding, white-hot inferno, threatening to completely shut down my nervous system.
I hear the heavy, metallic pounding of tactical boots rushing up the wooden stairs beneath the open hatch.
"Federal Agents! Drop the weapon!" a voice screams from the darkness of the stairwell.
I do not look down. I pull myself up the ladder, my boots kicking off the rusted iron rim of the hatch.
The pilot grabs my topcoat, hauling my heavy, bleeding body over the threshold of the cabin. I collapse onto the cold metal floor of the helicopter, completely breathless, the agony in my shoulder making my vision pulse with dark, fuzzy static.
