Chapter 9 - The Kidnapping Attempt
"You stupid, worthless bitch!" Julian roared, his voice shattering the silence of the cabin as he backhanded Wendy across the face, sending her crashing into the mahogany coffee table.
Wendy screamed, clutching her bleeding lip in sheer horror. "Julian! What are you doing?! That's the key from his safe!"
"It’s a military decoy tracker!" Julian snarled, drawing a suppressed Glock 19 from his shoulder holster. "He played you! The feds are probably thirty seconds out!"
Suddenly, Julian’s eyes narrowed with desperate, animalistic cunning. "The acquisition meeting is tonight. Harrison won't let his company burn, and he won't let his bloodline die. We need real leverage right now."
He turned to his lead enforcer on the deck. "Vance’s estate. We go take the girl. Now!"
My heart stopped.
"Marcus, green light!" I screamed through the comms. "Take them down NOW!"
Before Julian’s men could even unholster their weapons, flashbang grenades detonated across the deck of The Sea Ghost with deafening, blinding concussive blasts. Brilliant white light tore through the maritime fog, followed instantly by the roar of tactical smoke canisters.
"FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! DOWN ON THE DECK!"
Marcus’s operatives swarmed the gangway with surgical precision. The two armed lookouts on the deck were neutralized within four seconds, tackled and pinned to the fiberglass floor before they could raise their barrels.
Inside the salon, Julian didn't hesitate. He grabbed Wendy by the collar of her coat, using her as a human shield while firing three suppressed rounds through the salon window toward the boarding team, shattering glass everywhere.
Wendy shrieked in agony as Julian dragged her toward the lower engine bay escape hatch at the stern. He had an auxiliary rigid-hull inflatable boat moored to the water-level dive platform beneath the fog.
"Harrison, suspect is attempting waterborne extraction via secondary craft!" Marcus barked. "Team Two, cut off the stern!"
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Julian kicked open the lower transom door, shoved Wendy violently into the cold, churning waters of the harbor to create a distraction, jumped into the high-powered tactical Zodiac, and slammed the twin outboards to full throttle.
The inflatable boat shot into the black, foggy waters of Long Island Sound at forty knots, vanishing into the mist before the tactical team could get a clean shot.
