Chapter 34 - The Ocean's Scythe
While Preston and the cartel argued on the main deck, a military-grade stealth interceptor boat was cutting violently through the black, churning waves. After escaping the NCA headquarters, Marcus and El Sombra had tapped into the assassin's underground network to track the Black Hawk's transponder. They hadn't called for federal backup; Vance had weaponized the entire United States security apparatus against them. This was no longer a government operation. It was a merciless, unrestricted blood feud. Marcus stood at the helm, his weathered face soaked with seawater, his steel-blue eyes locked onto the towering silhouette of the cargo ship.
El Sombra stood beside him, racking the bolt of a heavy anti-materiel sniper rifle. "The ship's automated defense systems are active," the scarred assassin warned, pointing toward the heavy turret emplacements swiveling in the rain. "We cannot survive a direct approach. Commander, I need a distraction massive enough to let me board through the lower cargo bay." Marcus didn't answer with words. He pushed the twin throttles to the absolute maximum. The interceptor launched off a massive swell, roaring directly into the ship's firing arc. As the automated turrets unleashed a hail of heavy caliber rounds that tore the ocean to white froth around them, Marcus fired two unguided shoulder-mounted rockets strapped to the boat's bow. The fiery projectiles slammed directly into the ship's auxiliary fuel reserves, triggering the massive explosion that rocked the vessel.
Using the blinding smoke and sheer chaos as cover, El Sombra fired a magnetic grapple line, swinging off the speeding boat and disappearing into the pitch-black maw of a lower loading door like a true phantom. Marcus cut the wheel hard, slamming the interceptor into the side of the massive steel hull just as a rogue wave lifted him upward. He abandoned the shattered boat, driving his combat knife into the rusted steel of the ship to arrest his fall. Hanging suspended over the raging, bottomless ocean, the federal commander began his slow, terrifying ascent up the hull, bringing an inescapable reckoning to anyone who dared touch his daughter.
