Chapter 15 - The Judas in Uniform
The betrayal hit Daniel harder than any bullet. Tom Hayes, his oldest friend, the man who had stood by him at Claire’s empty memorial, who had helped him secure Lily's trust fund, was the handler directing the guns.
"Why, Tom?" Daniel screamed into the howling gale, though the engine noise drowned his voice into the tempest.
Through the vessel's satellite receiver, the radio speaker clicked alive with Hayes’s unhurried, measured voice. *"I told you at the beach, Daniel. Most men would have broken. But you just wouldn't let Claire go. Do you have any idea what Mercer Global's true valuation is when stripped of moral constraints? Claire was going to hand the cryptographic keys to the Department of Justice. She signed her own sentence."*
"And Victoria?" Daniel demanded, desperately calculating wave patterns to slip through the reef.
*"Victoria was an arrogant amateur who got sloppy,"* Hayes scoffed over the radio. *"She threw the kid overboard to cover her embezzlement. I had to orchestrate her downfall just to clean up the mess. But now, Lily has the biometrics. Claire coded the entire offshore repository to Lily’s retinal scan. Hand over the girl, Daniel. I’ll make sure you get a quick bullet instead of a lifetime at the bottom of a black site."*
"Over my dead body," Daniel hissed.
*"That was always the requirement,"* Hayes responded coldly. *"Sink them."*
The heavy caliber guns from the cutter tore into Daniel’s boat. The starboard engine exploded into flames, and the stern began taking on massive amounts of water.
Daniel grabbed a waterproof survival pack, strapped Lily securely to his chest with heavy nylon webbing, and primed an emergency flare in his fist.
"Lily, remember when we practiced diving at the pool?" Daniel asked, kissing her cold forehead.
"Yes, Daddy," she sobbed, trembling against his heartbeat.
"Deep breath, my brave girl. Close your eyes and don't let go of me."
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Daniel slammed the throttle wide open on the remaining engine, aiming straight toward the jagged tooth of Devil’s Reef, and leaped into the raging black abyss seconds before the boat collided and vanished in a catastrophic fireball.
***
