PART 2 – FULL: The crack of his hand against my face echoed across Camp Pendleton like a rifle shot, and I let it e

The silence in the sixty-eighth-floor salon was broken by the sharp, metallic snap of carbon fiber clearing leather.

Before Chen’s two bodyguards could react to the change in my posture, I drew the silenced ceramic pistol and fired two shots in three-tenths of a second. The subsonic rounds struck both guards in the chest plates, throwing them backward into the glass partitions.

Eli moved in the same breath, tackling the larger guard to the marble floor before the man could draw his weapon, driving a tactical combat blade into his neck with lethal finality.

Director Chen didn’t scream. He didn't panic. His training as a veteran intelligence director took over in an instant. He lunged toward the corner of the room, smashing his hand down onto an emergency red wall switch.

LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL INITIATED. SKYFALL ACTIVE.

The smart-glass windows of the entire penthouse suite instantly turned opaque black, and heavy titanium blast shutters began to descend over every entrance and exit with a deafening hydraulic screech.

"You are a fool, Maya!" Chen snarled, pulling a heavy-caliber revolver from the concealed compartment beneath the glass table. "You think you can walk into my stronghold and walk back out? This entire tower belongs to Aegis Meridian!"

He fired. The heavy bullet shattered the marble table next to me, spraying razor-sharp stone fragments across my dress.

I rolled behind a structural pillar as a second shot pulverized the plaster near my head. "Eli! The blast shutters are sealing! We have sixty seconds before this room becomes an airless tomb!"

"Working on the override!" Eli shouted from the floor, stripping the keycard and cryptographic token from the dead security guard's belt and jamming it into the wall-mounted terminal. "The primary server array is housed in the private helipad control room on the roof! Chen just routed the auction data through the rooftop transmitter!"

"Hold the exit!" I ordered.

I broke from cover, closing the distance on Chen before he could align his sights for a third shot. I lunged forward, sweeping his gun arm aside with a brutal forearm strike, driving my palm into his nose with enough force to shatter cartilage. Chen groaned, stumbling back against the reinforced glass wall as the revolver clattered across the polished floor.

I grabbed him by the throat, pinning his body against the panoramic window that looked down seventy stories into the glittering abyss of Manila.

"The auction stops now," I hissed, pressing the barrel of my ceramic weapon directly under his chin. "Abort the satellite uplink!"

Chen coughed, blood running down his chin, but his eyes were filled with fanatical defiance. "It's automated, Ruiz! The auction countdown reached zero three minutes ago! The transmission to the foreign fleet is already seventy percent complete! You can kill me, but you cannot stop the data from reaching the ocean!"

"Eli!" I yelled over the blaring klaxons. "Can you kill the rooftop dish from the console?"

"Negative!" Eli called back, firing his sidearm through the descending blast shutter to neutralize two approaching Aegis mercenaries in the outer hallway. "The rooftop terminal is hard-wired with a physical fiber-optic relay! The only way to stop the broadcast is to physically destroy the transmitter hub on the roof!"

I looked at the reinforced glass window behind Chen. Then I looked up at the emergency maintenance hatch in the ceiling leading directly to the rooftop helipad.

"Keep the door clear for thirty seconds," I told Eli.

I swung Chen around, using him as a human shield as three more private operators breached the shattered smart-glass entrance. Chen took two rounds from his own men before they realized who was in their line of fire. I dropped his lifeless body onto the marble floor, grabbed his heavy revolver from the ground, and pulled down the iron ladder of the overhead maintenance hatch.

I climbed up through the hatch into the violent, wind-whipped fury of the rooftop.

The rain had resumed, blowing horizontally across the wide concrete helipad sixty-eight stories in the sky. At the far edge of the roof stood a massive, dish-shaped satellite transceiver array, glowing with pulsing blue indicator lights as it beamed the stolen naval encryption codes into the low-Earth-orbit satellites above.

Standing near the base of the dish were four heavily armed mercenaries, guarding an armored telemetry trailer.

The moment my boots hit the wet concrete, the mercenaries turned, raising their assault rifles.

I didn't seek cover. There was no time.

I sprinted directly across the slick helipad, firing Chen's heavy revolver with both hands. The heavy rounds punched through the rain, dropping two operators before they could acquire a firing solution. The third opened fire, a high-velocity burst tearing through the hem of my silk gown and grazing my thigh.

I ignored the searing pain, closing the final ten yards in a desperate slide across the wet concrete. I drew the ceramic blade from my thigh sheath, swept the shooter’s legs from under him, and drove the blade through his collarbone as we hit the deck.

The final mercenary bolted toward the armored trailer to lock the door.

I threw the empty revolver with all my strength. The heavy steel frame struck him squarely in the back of the head, staggering him forward into the trailer doorframe. Before he could turn, I was on him, seizing his tactical rifle and driving the buttstock into his jaw, knocking him unconscious onto the metal grating.

I stepped inside the telemetry trailer.

On the main console, a progress bar flashed across three tactical monitors:

TRANSMISSION TO FOREIGN RECEIVER: 96% COMPLETE.

ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 12 SECONDS.

I didn't waste time trying to hack the password.

I reached onto the tactical belt of the fallen mercenary, pulled two fragmentation grenades from their pouches, pulled the pins simultaneously, and jammed them directly into the fiber-optic routing core behind the mainframe.

"Reaper-One to Eli," I yelled into my earpiece, diving out of the trailer back onto the wet helipad. "Get down!"

Three seconds later, the telemetry trailer erupted in a massive ball of orange fire and shredded shrapnel. The blast wave hurled me across the wet concrete, sliding me to a halt inches from the low safety railing overlooking the seventy-story drop.

The satellite dish shuddered, its blue lights flickering and dying into blackness as the burning wreckage of the mainframe rained down into the storm.

On my wrist unit, the tactical status indicator flashed green:

SIGNAL SEVERED. ENCRYPTION INTEGRITY: 100% PRESERVED.

I lay on the cold, wet concrete of the helipad, staring up into the dark, rain-swept sky above Manila, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. The pain in my shoulder and leg burned like fire, but for the first time in sixteen months, the silence of the night was absolute.

From the maintenance hatch, Eli emerged, his tuxedo torn and covered in soot, his rifle held at low-ready. He walked slowly across the helipad and offered me a gloved hand.

"Admiral Sloane is on the satellite link," Eli said, pulling me to my feet. "The Seventh Fleet is secure. The Iron Syndicate's network in Southeast Asia has completely collapsed."