Chapter 59 - The Frequency of Blood
Markus stared at Daniel through the rearview mirror as if Daniel had lost his mind. "You want to attack an armed gunship with an estate wagon and three sidearms?!"
"They don't want to destroy this car because Mason is inside!" Daniel yelled, the sound of bullets peppering the Audi’s armored tailgate like heavy hail. "Julian needs Mason alive to secure the Sterling trust! He’s tracking the capsule's signal! Use that against him!"
Markus gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. "If we die on this mountain, Vance, I'm haunting you for eternity."
Markus slammed the emergency handbrake, whipping the steering wheel hard to the left. The Audi executed a violent, smoking 180-degree J-turn on the narrow mountain pass, the rear quarter panel clipping the stone guardrail, sending boulders tumbling into the ravine below.
The three pursuing SUVs, unprepared for the suicidal maneuver, blew past them in a screech of locked brakes. Markus floored the accelerator, charging back downhill straight toward the flashing red beacons of the command helicopter hovering low over an abandoned funicular railway station on the ridge.
"Mason, put your head between your knees and cover your eyes!" Daniel ordered.
"I trust you, Daddy!" the boy shouted bravely, tucking himself into a tight ball on the floorboards, holding onto Daniel’s boots.
Daniel climbed into the front passenger seat, kicking out the shattered remains of the windshield. He hoisted a heavy Barrett .50-caliber anti-materiel rifle from the tactical bag Markus kept between the front seats.
The Audi roared toward the clearing at ninety miles per hour. Above them, the helicopter was hovering fifty feet off the ground, Julian Sterling visible in the open side cargo door, wearing a headset, shouting commands to his pilot.
Julian saw the Audi charging directly at him. Through the binoculars, he saw Daniel Vance leaning out the passenger window, the massive barrel of the Barrett leveling directly at the helicopter’s main rotor hub.
For the first time, sheer, unadulterated panic flashed across Julian Sterling’s refined aristocratic face.
"Pull up! Pull up now!" Julian shrieked into his headset.
It was too late.
*BOOM.*
The heavy .50-caliber round struck the rotor mast with the kinetic energy of an artillery shell. Titanium sheared like tin. The main blades detached with a catastrophic screech, whipping through the pine trees like giant scythes, decapitating the canopy.
The helicopter lost all lift, spinning out of control in a violent vortex of metal and kerosene, slamming into the concrete platform of the abandoned funicular station and rolling onto its side with a deafening, grinding crunch.
Markus slammed the brakes, the Audi sliding to a halt twenty yards from the burning wreckage.
Daniel was out of the car before the tires had stopped smoking.
He marched through the drifting snow and burning aviation fuel, his P226 drawn, his eyes dead and unblinking.
Julian Sterling was crawling out of the shattered cockpit, dragging a broken leg behind him, coughing blood onto the pristine white snow. His velvet jacket was shredded, the double-headed serpent ring covered in soot and gore.
Daniel planted his combat boot onto Julian’s shattered knee.
Julian let out an agonizing, high-pitched scream that echoed across the Swiss Alps.
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"The cipher," Daniel whispered, pressing the cold steel of his barrel between Julian’s eyes. "Give me the override cipher for Mason’s capsule, or I will peel your fingers off one by one."
***
