We bolted through the service corridors directly toward the executive roof helipad where Lead Bird Nine-Seven-Two was idling at full military war-emergency thrust, our hand-welted leather field boots crushing the debris into powder with that unhurried, rhythmic, concussive *TACK*:
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
Behind us, Barnaby vaulted through the open cabin doors of the Black Hawk, his amber eyes reflecting the tactical status screens, his low, guttural growl vibrating in his chest as the twin General Electric turboshaft engines shrieked into the night sky!
*ROOOOAR.*
The Black Hawk lifted vertically into the black Atlantic gale, its three-bladed wheels clearing the hotel communications spire by thirty feet, pivoting ninety degrees south at one hundred and sixty knots toward the Newport cliffside perimeter.
Inside the heated cabin, Captain Garrett Stone sat beside us on the troop bench, his large, calloused hand wrapped firmly around the monitoring console, his eyes locked onto the seismic telemetry from the cliff redoubt.
