Chapter 9 - The Reckoning
Z
The gunfight on the rooftop exploded in a flash of thunder and steel.
Victor's two private guards opened fire simultaneously. Natalie ducked behind a heavy HVAC unit on the edge of the helipad as high-caliber rounds tore through the metal housing, sending scalding steam and sparks whistling through the freezing air.
She leaned out from cover and fired three rapid shots. The first contractor took two rounds to the chest plate, staggering backward into the wind. The second guard adjusted his angle, but Natalie didn't give him the chance; she drove a crisp bullet through his tactical helmet, dropping him instantly onto the wet tarmac.
Victor didn't wait to fight. He scrambled into the rear cabin of the spinning helicopter, screaming at the pilot. "Take off! Take off NOW!"
The helicopter’s engine roared as the skids began to lift off the wet pad, hovering three feet in the air, swirling torrents of rain across the roof.
"Hale!" Natalie screamed.
She sprang from behind the HVAC unit, running across the slick rooftop at full sprint. As the helicopter rose higher, reaching six feet above the deck, Natalie threw herself through the air, catching the metal skid with both hands.
The force of the sudden weight jerked the aircraft, forcing the pilot to struggle with the pitch. Natalie hung thirty-eight stories above the streets of Washington, the city lights below blurred by rain and distance. The wind dragged at her body, but her grip was like iron.
Using her core strength, she pulled herself up onto the skid, reached into the open cabin doorway, and grabbed Victor by his expensive silk tie, hauling him halfway out of the aircraft.
"Get off me!" Victor shrieked, striking her repeatedly across the face with his heavy briefcase.
Blood welled from Natalie's lip, but she felt no pain. She pulled him further out until Victor was dangling over the edge of the skid, his eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated terror as he looked down at the sheer drop to the pavement below.
"Please!" Victor begged, his aristocratic composure completely disintegrating into high-pitched panic. "Natalie, please! I can give you millions! Offshore accounts! Anything you want!"
"I want my squad back," Natalie whispered into his ear over the deafening scream of the turbine engines.
She slammed his head against the door frame, disarming him, and yanked the leather briefcase from his hands. Then, with a brutal shove, she threw him backward onto the floor of the cabin, stepped inside the aircraft, and pressed the barrel of her pistol directly between his eyes.
"Land the chopper," Natalie commanded the pilot through the cockpit partition, her voice absolute and chilling. "Or the next round goes through your rotor control line."
The pilot, pale and terrified, immediately lowered the collective. The helicopter descended back onto the Titan Tower helipad with a heavy thud, the skids settling into the standing water.
Natalie dragged Victor out of the cabin by his collar, tossing him like a ragdoll onto the wet asphalt.
At that moment, the roof access doors burst open. Knox, Cole, and a dozen tactical officers from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team poured onto the roof, weapons raised, laser sights painting the night sky.
"Federal agents! Don't move!" the lead SWAT officer bellowed over a megaphone.
Knox sprinted across the deck, stepping between Natalie and the arrested mercenaries, while Cole rushed directly over to where Richard Ward lay unconscious beside the perimeter wall.
Victor lay in the rain, hands pinned behind his back by two federal agents, his expensive suit ruined, his empire crumbling into dust around him.
Cole knelt beside their father, checking his pulse. He looked up at Natalie, his eyes filled with a complex mixture of sorrow, relief, and finality. "He's alive, Nat. But it's over. The FBI just seized Titan Global's servers nationwide."
Natalie stood in the center of the helipad, the icy rain washing the blood and gunpowder from her face. She looked down at Victor Hale, then at her father being loaded onto a medical stretcher by paramedics, and finally at Knox, who walked over and gently placed a warm hand on her shoulder.
"You brought them home, Captain," Knox said softly, referring to the four names on the Black Lantern roster that had finally been cleared. "The truth is out."
Natalie looked out over the skyline of Washington D.C., where the first pale light of dawn was breaking through the storm clouds, illuminating the Capitol dome in soft silver light. For eleven years, she had been a ghost, wandering in the shadows of a dead identity.
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She took a deep, clear breath of the cold morning air, feeling the weight of the past eleven years finally slide off her shoulders.
She was no longer Wraith Seven. She was Natalie Ward. And she was finally coming home.
