Chapter 7 - The Battle of the Heights
Black-clad figures swung down on high-tension ropes through the broken glass ceiling—Hector and a dozen of Vargas’s most loyal veteran enforcers, executing a flawless tactical insertion.
Simultaneously, the main double doors of the ballroom were slammed open. Hundreds of angry dockworkers, armed with heavy iron pipes, wrenches, and shotguns, poured into the room, led by Tomas.
Chaos erupted instantly. Panic-stricken politicians and corrupt elite screamed and dropped to the floor, crawling beneath tables to escape the crossfire.
Gabriel fired a wild shot at me. I ducked, feeling the bullet breeze past my ear, and lunged forward, tackling Gabriel across the mahogany podium. We crashed to the floor behind the stage, rolling across shattered glass and spilt wine.
Gabriel was old, but he was driven by pure, manic desperate rage. He gouged at my eyes with his thumbs, screaming like a rabid animal. I broke his grip, striking him hard across the jaw with an elbow. He gasped, dropping his weapon, but managed to scramble to his feet and sprint toward the private emergency exit behind the stage.
“Aurelio! He’s running for the roof!” Hector yelled, firing a burst from his submachine gun to suppress two mercenary shooters.
“Cover the exit! Don’t let his men reinforce him!” I shouted back.
I picked up Gabriel’s discarded gun, checked the magazine, and bolted up the narrow steel staircase leading to the hotel’s rooftop helipad.
I burst through the heavy roof door into the howling wind and blinding torrents of the tropical storm. Thunder cracked overhead, lighting up the sky in stark silver flashes.
At the center of the rooftop, a silver twin-engine helicopter was idling, its rotter blades spinning faster and faster, whipping rain into a blinding mist. Gabriel was running frantically toward the open side door of the aircraft, carrying a heavy steel briefcase containing his offshore bank codes.
“Gabriel!” I shouted, my voice cutting through the roar of the helicopter engines.
Gabriel stopped ten feet from the helicopter door. He turned around slowly, drawing a heavy hunting knife from his belt, his eyes wild and bloodshot.
“You insolent little trash!” Gabriel screamed into the wind. “You should have died in the gutter with your grandmother! She was weak, and so are you!”
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“My grandmother died with her honor intact,” I said, walking toward him in the rain, my gun pointed at his chest. “You’re about to die like a cornered dog.”
Gabriel lunged at me with terrifying speed, slashing the knife upward toward my throat.
