Chapter 4 - Blood and Water
The cabin door was kicked open.
I didn't hesitate. I raised the SIG Sauer and fired twice through the fiberglass wall where the voice had come from. A body hit the deck with a heavy thud.
Vance laid down covering fire, shattering the cabin windows as a barrage of automatic gunfire ripped through the trawler, tearing the electronics to shreds.
"We need to sink it!" Vance yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire. "If they get these drives, your father is dead!"
I grabbed the hard drives, shoved them into a waterproof tactical pouch, and strapped it to my chest. "The scuttle charge is in the engine room! Go!"
We scrambled down the narrow ladder into the belly of the boat. Bullets pinged against the steel hull. Vance hit the manual override on the bilge pumps, reversing them to flood the engine bay, then primed a thermite charge on the main console.
"Jump!" Vance yelled.
We dove through the emergency escape hatch into the freezing, pitch-black waters of the harbor just as the thermite charge detonated. The trawler erupted in a violent fireball, sending a shockwave through the water that knocked the breath out of my lungs.
I swam hard, the freezing water burning my skin, relying on years of Naval survival training. We breached the surface beneath the rotting wooden pylons of an abandoned pier, gasping for air.
Above us, Vanguard mercenaries were shining high-powered spotlights onto the burning wreckage of the trawler.
"No bodies," one of the men shouted over a radio. "Lock down the perimeter!"
Vance and I clung to the barnacle-covered wood, shivering uncontrollably.
"We have to go off the grid," Vance whispered, blood dripping from a shallow graze on his forehead. "No safe houses. No credit cards. No official channels."
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I looked at the flames reflecting in the dark water. The Commander Sarah Donovan who played by the rules was dead.
"We don't hide," I said, my voice hardening into steel. "My father gave us their financial infrastructure. We aren't going to run from Vanguard. We are going to bleed them dry."
