Chapter 21: Fire and Blood
Elias was a ghost, but he fought like a demon. From the basement stairs, Chloe watched in horror and awe as the old man returned fire with lethal precision. He had rigged the perimeter. Explosions rocked the ground outside, sending plumes of dirt and screams into the night air. But there were too many of them. The men in the white tactical suits poured through the breached doors.
A bullet caught Elias in the shoulder, spinning him around. He fell hard against the trapdoor, bleeding heavily.
"The tunnel!" Elias screamed over the gunfire, coughing up blood. "It leads to the old radio tower on the ridge! Hook the laptop to the primary terminal. It will automatically upload the files to a dead-man's switch server I built!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Chloe cried, grabbing his arm.
May you like
Elias looked at her, and for a second, Chloe saw the same fierce, heartbreaking resolve she had seen in her mother's eyes in the ravine.
"Make them bleed, kid," Elias smiled, blood staining his teeth. He pulled a pin from a fragmentation grenade on his vest and slammed the heavy iron trapdoor shut from the top, locking it.
