Chapter 4 - Flight Over the Basalt Cliffs
The cliffside hangar was carved directly into the volcanic rock.
Inside sat a matte-black attack helicopter.
Twin turbine engines were already whining to life.
Dominic shoved me into the passenger harness.
Valkyrie perched firmly on the steel roll cage behind my seat.
Dominic strapped himself into the pilot’s chair.
His hands moved across the switches with practiced military precision.
The reinforced hangar doors opened onto the roaring abyss.
Three hundred feet below, the black Mediterranean raged against jagged rocks.
The helicopter lifted off into the teeth of the gale.
Rain lashed the windscreen like lead pellets.
Down on the coastline, a hundred-foot luxury yacht was tearing through the surf.
The De Winter family crest was painted on its hull.
“They’re heading for international waters!” I shouted through the headset.
“They have to clear the coastal reef first,” Dominic replied coldly.
He banked the helicopter hard to the left, diving through the storm clouds.
From the stern of the yacht, a mercenary raised a shoulder-fired rocket
launcher.
A red tracer locked onto our rotor mast.
“MISSILE!” I screamed.
Dominic hit the flare countermeasures.
Burning magnesium trails erupted from our tail boom.
The surface missile detonated fifty yards away in a blinding ball of smoke.
The shockwave tossed our helicopter sideways.
Dominic fought the cyclic stick, pulling us out of the dive ten feet above the
wave crests.
Suddenly, Valkyrie let out a piercing war cry.
The hawk ruffled her feathers, her golden eyes fixed on the yacht’s radar mast.
May you like
She knew the target.
She remembered the scent of her former master’s killers.
