"Declan Cross’s crew shot up a federal transport on public asphalt," I said, locking my own bolt forward. "They’re operating as an armed hostile cell under Title 18. Anyone displaying a drawn weapon on that deck is an active lethal threat. We secure the crane controls first, kill the winch engines, and breach the command cabin on the tug."
"One minute to target," the pilot called out.
I moved to the open door, clipping my safety lanyard to the bulkhead runner, gripping the cold steel frame with both hands.
Through the curtains of falling rain, the industrial geometry of the Buttermilk Channel materialized ahead.
The *Iron Monarch* was a massive two-hundred-foot steel deck barge, riding low in the dark water. Lined along its center spine were twelve standardized forty-foot intermodal shipping containers, all painted marine blue with the distinct gold shield logo of Blue Shield Consulting emblazoned across their corrugated flanks.
Tied off along the barge’s starboard side was the *Chesapeake Runner*—a blunt-nosed, ocean-going tug equipped with a hydraulic lattice crane mounted to its stern.
The crane’s boom was already swung out over the open water. Suspended from four heavy steel cables was the central evidence container, hanging twenty feet above the black chop. White exhaust puffed frantically from the tug’s auxiliary generator as the winch cable unspooled, lowering the massive steel box foot by foot toward the swirling current.
On the flat expanse of the barge deck, six men in high-visibility rain slickers and tactical plate carriers stood watch, carrying short-barreled automatic shotguns and carbines, their faces obscured by black neoprene masks.
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"They have lookouts on the containers!" Miller yelled into my ear.
As if on cue, one of the armed men on top of the central container stack spotted our helicopter descending out of the clouds. He raised a black receiver to his chest, shouted into a radio, and brought an FN FAL battle rifle up to his shoulder.
A burst of heavy 7.62mm fire chewed through the rain, two rounds punching clean through the thin aluminum skin of our helicopter’s tail boom with sharp, metallic clangs.
"Taking fire! Taking fire!" the co-pilot shouted.
"Hold her steady for five seconds!" I ordered.
I stepped out onto the skid, wrapped my left arm through the heavy nylon support strap, and brought my MK18 up to my cheek. The rotor wash tore at my uniform, but my sight picture was rock steady. The red dot settled on the center of the shooter’s chest plate.
I pressed the trigger three times.
The shooter snapped backward, his rifle flying into the river as his body tumbled off the twenty-foot container roof, hitting the steel deck of the barge with a deadening smack.