Chapter 100 - The Horizon of Shadows
The underground vault shuddered as Captain Vance and his Delta team blew the blast doors at the top of the stairwell, rushing down the metal catwalks with weapons at the ready, securing the perimeter and throwing zip-ties around Victor Sterling’s arms and legs.
"General!" Vance shouted, breathing hard, his uniform covered in soot and blood. "The surface is secure! NORAD reports the silos have reset to standby status! We stopped the launch!"
"We stopped the missiles, Vance," I said, my gaze never leaving the face of Raymond Sterling on the massive display screen. "We didn't stop the war."
Raymond Sterling stood up from his ebony desk. Outside the arched windows behind him, lightning fractured the black sky over an immense, jagged coastline—an uncharted fortress island somewhere in the deep southern ocean.
"You have twenty-four hours, General Gardner," Raymond said, his voice carrying the finality of an executioner. "Surrender your daughter to my custody. Bring her to the coordinates being uploaded to your terminal now. If you do not... I will issue the fire command to Ohio-class submarine *USS Nebraska*. And this time, there will be no manual override in Silo Seven to save your cities."
"I will see you in hell first, Sterling," I said, my voice shaking with an unstoppable, volcanic fury.
"Perhaps," Raymond whispered with a cold, mocking smile. "But you will see your daughter in my chains before that day arrives. Farewell, General."
The screen snapped to black.
The terminal emitted a low, rhythmic chime as a set of geographic coordinates printed across the terminal:
**SECTOR 47: THE DEVIL'S CALDERA — SOUTH PACIFIC.**
**COUNTDOWN TO SUBMARINE LAUNCH: 23:59:59.**
Abigail stood beside me, looking down at the coordinates, her face bathed in the cold green light of the console. She didn't look afraid. She reached into her pocket, pulled out Julian Sterling’s signet ring—the ring she had stripped from his dead hand—and crushed it beneath the heel of her combat boot.
She looked up at me, her eyes burning with an unholy fire.
"Mom," Abigail said, racking the slide of her weapon. "Call the fleet. We’re going to the island."
I slowly turned around, looked at Vance, and reached for my secure satellite phone to initiate the ultimate combat deployment of my career.
May you like
The battle for our lives was over.
The war for the world had just begun.
