Chapter 9 - Ambush and Climax
The sound of my voice in the confined space of the dark room was like an electric shock.
Nolan spun on his knees with terrifying speed. His left hand whipped the penlight out of his mouth, shining the blinding white beam directly into my eyes, while his right hand scooped the crowbar off the carpet.
"Blair!" he gasped, his voice catching in his throat.
I didn't blink. I stepped through the beam, closing the distance before his eyes could adjust to the darkness behind the light.
"Step away from the paneling," I said.
Nolan rose slowly to his feet, his breathing coming fast and ragged. The shock on his face lasted only two seconds before it dissolved into that familiar, venomous snarl. The penlight beam trembled in his grip, painting erratic arcs across the walls.
"You really are stupid, aren't you?" Nolan hissed, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and psychotic fury. "You came here alone. You couldn't let it go. You had to come and play the hero."
"I’m never alone on an objective, Nolan."
He let out a short, hysterical bark of laughter. "Don't bluff me! If you’d brought the police, they’d be kicking down the doors right now! You came here to steal the box yourself. You came to save your precious career!"
He raised the crowbar, shifting his weight onto his back foot. The heavy hexagonal steel gleamed in the penlight’s backscatter.
"Do you know what happens now, Blair?" Nolan whispered, his face twitching violently. "A tragic secondary incident. The distraught, suspended Army officer returns to her mother's home, confronts an unknown intruder, and suffers a fatal head injury during the burglary. And with you dead, the life insurance policy pays out to your grieving husband. Five million dollars tax-free. It covers the mezzanine loan. It covers everything."
"You really believe you're smarter than everyone else, don't you?" I said, my voice dropping into absolute stillness. "You actually believe the world operates on your terms."
"I *win*, Blair! I always win!"
He lunged.
It was not a trained strike. It was the desperate, downward swing of a cornered predator—fast, violent, aiming to crush my skull with the hooked end of the steel bar.
In close-quarters combat, you do not back away from a blunt weapon; you step inside the arc.
I stepped forward with my left foot, slipping beneath the descending steel. The bar whistled through the empty air two inches from my ear. Before his arm could recover, I drove the heel of my left palm upward into the base of his nose.
The wet *crunch* of breaking cartilage echoed through the room.
Nolan screamed, stumbling backward, the penlight dropping from his hand and rolling across the floor, casting long, grotesque shadows. But he didn't drop the bar. Blinded by tears of pain, he swung wildly with a backhand strike.
I ducked beneath it, hooked my right foot behind his lead ankle, and delivered a short, explosive palm strike to his solar plexus.
Nolan’s breath left him in a sickening wheeze. His legs gave out, and he slammed heavily onto the floor, the crowbar clattering against the sewing machine’s iron treadle.
I pinned his right arm with my knee, twisted his wrist until the tendons screamed, and stripped the crowbar from his grip.
Then I leaned down, bringing my face inches from his bloody, ruined nose.
"Objective secured," I whispered into my collar mic.
The house exploded into light.
The front door crashed inward off its hinges. High-intensity tactical strobes flooded the hallway with blinding, pulsating white light.
*"POLICE! DOWN ON THE GROUND! DON'T MOVE!"*
Heavy boots thundered down the corridor. Sloan burst into the sewing room with three tactical officers, their rifles raised, the red dots of their laser sights painting circles across Nolan’s chest.
"Clear!" Sloan yelled, lowering his weapon as he saw Nolan pinned beneath my knee. "Step back, Colonel! We’ve got him!"
I stood up slowly, smoothing the front of my jacket.
Two officers dropped onto Nolan, wrenching his arms behind his back and snapping heavy steel cuffs onto his wrists. Nolan was sobbing now, a mixture of blood, snot, and tears smearing across the faded carpet.
"Blair!" he shrieked, his voice thin, pathetic, entirely stripped of its aristocratic polish. "Blair, tell them! She attacked me! It was self-defense! Tell them, Blair! Jonathan! Call Jonathan!"
Sloan hauled him to his feet by the collar of his running jacket.
"Save it for the magistrate, Vickers," Sloan growled into his ear. "We’ve got you on four separate camera angles breaking into this house, we’ve got your prints on the Hardy’s poker, and the FBI Financial Crimes Unit just seized your server room in Tysons Corner forty minutes ago."
Nolan froze. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, darted toward me in the strobing light.
"You... you called the Bureau?" he whispered.
"I didn't call them, Nolan," I said, stepping into the hallway as the officers pushed him past me. "Chief Warrant Officer Martinez did. Six hours ago. You’re facing eighteen counts of federal wire fraud, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and two counts of attempted capital murder."
I looked into the face of the man who had tried to erase my family for eight million dollars.
"Enjoy the rest of your life in ADX Florence, Nolan. You won't need to worry about the stock market there."
May you like
He opened his mouth to scream another curse, but the officers shoved him through the front door into the flashing blue lights of the convoy waiting outside.
---
