Chapter 14 - Blood on the Pacific Highway
Two shadows crossed the intersecting beam of moonlight cutting through the torn curtains of the grand hallway. Gabriel fired three rounds through the drywall.
Two hollow thuds followed. The second operative collapsed instantly, a center-mass strike. The third dove behind a marble counter, returning fire with wild bursts of 9mm submachine fire that pulverized the plaster and antique paintings into floating dust.
Gabriel moved before the brass casings even hit the floor. He flanked the counter in three low, explosive strides, kicking the operative’s weapon from his grip, sweeping his legs out from under him, and pressing the barrel of his sidearm directly between the man’s tactical goggles.
"Who hired you?" Gabriel snarled, his thumb pulling back the hammer.
The operative spat blood through his mask, laughing raspy and wet. "You’re too late, Mercer... The convoy to the hospital... Arthur Bennett isn't in a clinic anymore. He's at the docks. And the mistress... wants her daughter back."
A sharp crack echoed through the house as Gabriel ended the threat.
There was no time. Gabriel sprinted back down to the wine cellar, hauled Maria and Nora out of the vault, and led them through the subterranean maintenance tunnel that fed out into the cliffside drainage reservoir four hundred yards north of the estate.
Parked beneath the overgrown canopy of coastal scrub sat an unmarked, heavily armored black SUV—Gabriel’s personal contingency vehicle. He loaded Maria and Nora into the reinforced rear cabin, threw the duffels into the front, and keyed the ignition. The supercharged V8 engine roared to life with a deep, muffled growl.
Gabriel threw the vehicle into gear, smashing through the rusted access gates and tearing out onto the Pacific Coast Highway just as three sets of high-intensity halogen beams appeared in his rearview mirror.
"Hold on!" Gabriel barked.
Behind them, two black tactical SUVs and a high-performance motorcycle roared out of the fog, accelerating aggressively to close the distance along the winding, two-lane asphalt ribbon hanging hundreds of feet above the churning ocean.
Muzzle flashes strobed from the lead chase vehicle. High-caliber rounds pinged and ricocheted off the armored tailgate of Gabriel’s SUV, spider-webbing the ballistic glass but failing to penetrate.
In the back, Maria screamed, shielding Nora with her body. Nora didn't scream. She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching the yellow ribbon to her chest, her lips moving in silent prayer.
Gabriel watched the rear camera display on his dash. The highway twisted ahead through Devil’s Elbow—a notorious hairpin turn flanked by a sheer stone mountain on the right and a three-hundred-foot cliff drop into the rocky surf on the left.
The motorcycle surged forward, pulling alongside the driver’s side door. The rider, clad in matte-black leather, reached toward his belt, pulling an adhesive magnetic thermite charge intended to breach the driver's window.
Gabriel didn't swerve away. He slammed his foot on the brake with violent force.
The SUV bucked. The sudden deceleration caught the motorcyclist off guard. The bike surged ahead by five feet—placing its rear wheel directly in line with Gabriel’s reinforced steel bumper.
Gabriel slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
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The impact was cataclysmic. The heavy armored truck obliterated the motorcycle's rear axle, launching the bike and rider off the asphalt, through the wooden guardrail, and into the roaring, empty void of the Pacific canyon below.
But the two chase SUVs were already flanking him from behind, closing in for a PIT maneuver at eighty miles per hour on the edge of the abyss.
