Chapter 27 - The StandoffI reached slowly into my jacket pocket, my fingers wrapping around the small black USB flash drive containing the hospital terminal data.
"How do I know you won't kill them the second I give it to you?" I asked, keeping my eyes locked on Katherine’s cold, unblinking stare.
"You don't," Katherine answered bluntly, her smile widening into a cruel smirk. "You simply have to trust that I have more important things to do than slaughter children. Although, given your history of defiance, testing my patience is a very dangerous game."
One of the mercenaries pressed the barrel of his submachine gun firmly against Mateo’s temple. Mateo winced, biting his lip to keep from crying out, but his eyes flashed with the same fierce, stubborn defiance I had seen in Mariana a decade ago.
"Dad, don't give it to her!" Mateo yelled.
"Shut up, boy!" the mercenary snarled, tightening his grip.
"Stop!" I shouted, pulling the flash drive completely out of my pocket and holding it up so the afternoon sun glinted off its black plastic casing. "I have it. The drive is right here. Let Mateo and Lucía go first, or I throw this drive into the industrial shredder behind the rail line."
Katherine studied my face, weighing my resolve. For a tense, agonizing moment, neither of us moved. The wind howled through the rusted train cars, carrying the distant, faint sound of approaching sirens.
Sirens?
Katherine’s head snapped toward the horizon. Faint red-and-blue flashing lights were cutting through the dust clouds half a mile down the access road.
The federal tactical backup I had called was finally arriving.
"You lied," Katherine hissed, her polite mask instantly shattering into pure, venomous rage. "You brought the feds!"
"You didn't think I'd walk into a trap unarmed, did you?" I retorted, taking a strategic step backward.
"Kill the boy!" Katherine shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Mateo.
The mercenary's finger tightened on the trigger—
CRACK!
A high-powered sniper rifle shot echoed across the rail yard.
The mercenary’s submachine gun flew from his grasp as a bullet pierced the steel receiver of his weapon, tearing his glove to shreds.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!" a booming voice amplified through a tactical megaphone roared across the rail yard.
Dodge trucks and armored tactical vehicles swarmed the depot from both sides, their high-beams blinding the mercenaries in a wall of intense white light.
Katherine stumbled backward, panic flashing across her face for the first time. "Retreat! Get to the transport!"
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The second mercenary shoved Lucía hard to the ground, pulling a smoke grenade from his belt and hurling it toward the ground between us.
Thick, blinding gray smoke billowed upward instantly, obscuring everything in a dense, suffocating cloud.
