Page 156 of Seven Deadly Sins

“Shoot that down!”

“It’s the news station, sir.” The nearest man glanced up.

“I don’t care if it’s the president. Shoot it down.”

He nodded and sprinted for the storage building. A minute later, he knelt beside Robert, a rocket launcher on his shoulder. As the helicopter turned to leave, he fired.

The copter exploded. Burning pieces of the machine drifted to the ground.

Maybe now, they’d listen when Robert gave an order.

~

Liam’s heart dropped. Rice noodles fell from the fork suspended half-way to his mouth as the rocket fired from the ground struck.

Harper gave a small scream and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I thought you said they were told to pull back.”

“They were.” Before being shot down, they’d managed to show the area where Robert was holed up, but not how to get there. He grabbed his phone and called the station. “Tell me who got the copter’s location.”

“Not the exact, but a good idea. I’ll text the coordinates to you.”

Liam’s next call was to the chief who told him no one would be back in the air until the national guard could take over.

“I’m not going to have my people, or yours, suffer the same fate as those reporters.”

“Harper and I intend to keep searching those mountains in the morning.” Nothing could deter him. He’d disobey a direct order if he had to. They were going to stop Robert. Now.

He hung up on the chief’s sputterings. “No more copters. He’s calling in the national guard.”

“For now, it’s up to us. I prefer it that way. We’re the grand finale anyway. Might as well take the fight to him. Just Robert and us.” Despite the weary lines on her face, her features hardened.

“What if the chief orders you not to?”

“Then, I’ll lay my badge on his desk. He’ll have to arrest me in order to stop me.”

“That’s my girl.” He started to reach for her, to kiss the furrow between her brows, and stopped.

Her eyes widened, then dropped. She started gathering up the cardboard boxes their food had come in, then carried it to the kitchen.

Liam wasn’t finished, but his appetite had fled with the bombing of the reporter’s helicopter. His phone dinged with the coordinates of the fallen helicopter. He grinned. The compound wasn’t hidden any longer. We’re coming for you, Thompson. The hardest part would be getting the man away from his followers.

Would he face him and Harper willingly if they contacted him? Maybe they could send a message to the man through one of the men he would have guarding his perimeter.

“A lot more people are going to die.” Harper hovered in the doorway. “The National Guard won’t back down if fired upon. Those misled people following Robert will die. We can’t let that happen. We aren’t responsible for what my father and your grandfather allegedly did, but neither are those people.”

He nodded. “Are you sure you’re ready to face Thompson?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Absolutely not, but we have to.”

One or both of them would most likely not be alive after the confrontation. He had to make sure it wasn’t Harper that perished.

“Then, we need a plan.”

She sat in the chair across from him and tied her hair into a messy bun. “I say we face him head on. No sneaking up. We park a little bit away from the compound and walk in. We’re less likely to get shot that way.”

“Not unless we wear our Kevlar.”

“I’m definitely fine with that.” She tilted her head. “What do we say? We can’t very well say “here we are, come kill us”, right?”