Chapter 19 - The Lion's Den
The cliff trail behind the cottage was a treacherous, zig-zagging goat path carved directly into sheer granite. Rain began to fall in heavy, blinding sheets, turning the dirt into slick red mud. Julian led the way, using a red-tinted tactical flashlight to illuminate the sheer drops where a single misstep meant plunging into the jagged rocks below.
Searchlights pierced the clouds above the house. Two black Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks hovered over their craftsman home, armed men rappelling down ropes onto the cedar shingles they had called peace for only seven months.
"Faster!" Julian urged, grabbing Clara’s waist as she slipped on a muddy root, catching her before she plummeted. Maya cried out, her tiny shrieks drowned by the roar of the crashing surf eighty feet below.
At the base of the cliffs lay a hidden sea cave where Julian kept an Zodiac inflatable military-grade boat, fueled and ready for offshore fishing. They scrambled over wet boulders, the salt spray lashing their faces like needles.
Julian yanked the tarp off the Zodiac, hauling it toward the surging tide. "Get in! Keep her head down!"
Clara climbed into the bow, shielding Maya with her entire body. Julian pushed the heavy craft into the chest-deep breakers, fighting against the crushing undertow before leaping over the transom and yanking the motor cord.
The 100-horsepower outboard engine roared to life.
Just as the boat surged forward past the mouth of the sea cave, a high-powered beam of white light struck them directly from the cliffs above.
*Crack-crack-crack!*
High-caliber rifle fire stitched a line across the water five yards to their port side. Julian swerved the tiller violently, guiding the Zodiac through the narrow channel of jagged sea stacks. Behind them, standing on the observation promontory overlooking the cove, a figure stood silhouetted against the helicopter searchlights.
The figure was not a U.S. Marshal.
The figure was wearing a tailored black cashmere trench coat, leaning on a silver-tipped cane, watching their boat battle the waves with chilling indifference. Through the scope of his rifle, Julian caught a glimpse of the man’s face in the lightning flash.
It wasn't Charles Vance.
Charles was in Zurich.
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The man standing on the cliff was Warden Miller. And beside him stood a woman whose face was heavily bandaged in medical gauze, her posture immaculate, her hands gloved in black calfskin.
Victoria Sterling had never been in Cellblock B when the bomb exploded.
