Chapter 15 - The Leap of Faith
'Freeze! Don't move!' shouted a heavily armored private security operative as he burst through the mahogany doors into the penthouse office, his assault rifle raised and locked directly on my position.
I didn't hesitate.
I clipped the heavy rescue carabiner onto the high-tensile anchor cable running down the exterior glass facade of the skyscraper, hoisted the leather ledger tight against my chest, and threw myself backward through the shattered glass window into the open night air.
The world dissolved into a rush of howling wind, freezing rain, and dizzying vertical space.
I dropped downward like a stone, the friction-braking carabiner hissing loudly as it gripped the steel guide wire bolted to the building's exterior architecture. Sparks showered off the metal track just inches from my face as I plummeted past the fortieth floor, the thirty-fifth, the thirtieth...
Above me, muffled shouts and the sharp crack of a suppressed firearm echoed from the shattered penthouse window. A bullet pinged off the steel cable just above my head, vibrating violently through my entire body.
I curled my legs inward, using my feet to bounce off the glass paneling of the twenty-fifth floor to stabilize my descent as the wind whipped my hair across my face.
Ground level rushed up to meet me with terrifying speed.
Ten stories... five stories... two stories...
I pulled hard on the brake lever integrated into the harness just ten feet above the concrete plaza, the friction screaming as the harness locked.
My boots slammed hard onto the pavement of the private loading dock, jarring my spine and sending a sharp spasm of pain through my healing burn dressings. I stumbled forward, rolling across the wet concrete to absorb the momentum, still clutching the heavy leather ledger in my grip.
I scrambled to my feet instantly, tearing the heavy harness off my waist and sprinting blindly around the corner into the dark maze of alleyways behind the financial district.
Behind me, heavy doors slammed open. Shouts rang out across the plaza: 'She’s down on the plaza! Secure the perimeter! Find her!'
I ducked behind a row of large commercial industrial dumpsters, pressing my back hard against the cold brick wall of an old brick warehouse, holding my breath as the beam of a security flashlight swept across the mouth of the alley just twenty feet away.
My chest heaved, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. My left arm throbbed with white-hot agony where the stress of the descent had strained the healing skin grafts.
I looked down at the leather-bound ledger clutched tightly in my hands. The cover was stained with rain and soot, but the pages inside—the complete, irrefutable blueprint of Victor Vance’s twenty-year criminal empire—were intact.
I pulled the burner phone from my pocket with trembling fingers. The signal was dead—jammed by the security grid.
I was completely cut off, hunted by a billionaire criminal syndicate that controlled half the city, and carrying the most dangerous book in Illinois.
And then, from the shadows at the other end of the alley, a pair of headlights flickered on twice.
May you like
A battered black Ford sedan edged slowly out of the shadows, its passenger-side window rolling down smoothly.
A familiar voice called out softly from the darkness: 'Get in, Claire. We don't have much time.'
