Chapter 77 - The Gathering of the Iron Fleet
Outside on the bluffs, the night was pitch-black. Thick sea fog rolled off the crashing waves, blanketing the manicured lawns of Sycamore Lane in an ghostly, shifting shroud.
Automatic gunfire erupted along the lower beach path. Tracers of red and green lit up the fog like violent fireflies. Marcus and his seasoned security team were holding the rocky outcrop, trading suppression fire with the advancing consortium strike team.
"They're moving up the eastern gully!" Marcus’s voice crackled through Caleb's earpiece. *"Sir, they have night-vision thermals and heavy armor! We can't hold the shoreline stairs for more than five minutes!"*
"Fall back to the secondary perimeter at the rose terrace, Marcus!" Caleb barked into his mic. "Funnel them toward the fountain! We are flanking through the lighthouse ridge!"
Caleb and Evelyn broke into a dead sprint along the narrow dirt path cut into the face of the cliff. Below them, waves crashed furiously against jagged rocks hundreds of feet down. To their right, the silhouetted tower of the old lighthouse loomed against the stormy sky, dark and unlit.
Suddenly, two figures clad in black tactical gear burst through the fog ahead of them, weapon lights cutting through the mist.
"Contacts, twelve o'clock!" Evelyn shouted, dropping instantly to one knee.
Her rifle barked twice in rapid succession. The double-tap struck the lead operative squarely in the chest plate, dropping him backward onto the gravel. Caleb raised his weapon, firing three controlled rounds into the second gunman, who collapsed over the cliff’s edge with a choked cry, swallowed by the darkness and the crashing surf below.
"Clear!" Caleb called out, rushing toward the heavy iron doorway at the base of the lighthouse tower.
He pulled the heavy gold key from his pocket. The lock was hidden beneath a brass plate embossed with the Roman numerals *MCMLXXIV* (1974). Caleb jammed the key into the slot and turned it clockwise with all his strength.
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Inside the lock mechanism, heavy tumblers clunked into place with the sound of a bank vault opening. The heavy steel door popped open outward.
"Get inside!" Caleb yelled as rifle rounds began pinging against the lighthouse's thick stone exterior, kicked up by the second wave of mercenaries rushing up the ridge.
