Chapter 164 - The Ambush on 44th Street
The rain over Clinton was turning into a sluggish sleet, coating the black asphalt of 44th Street in a slick, glassy sheen.
Saint Jude's Chapel stood like a dark stone sentinel against the gray sky, wedged between a six-story residential brownstone and an abandoned printing warehouse. Its gothic spire pierced the low-hanging fog, while its heavy oak doors, banded with black wrought iron, remained shut against the city.
From the second-floor window of a dilapidated tenement across the street, Marcus and I peered through a pair of compact binoculars.
Down below, three black Cadillac Escalades were parked bumper-to-bumper along the curb, engines idling, exhaust plumes rising in thick white clouds into the cold air. Men in heavy tactical parkas stood under the church portico, their hands tucked into their pockets, their eyes sweeping the pedestrian sidewalk with practiced, rhythmic precision.
Among them was Lev.
He was speaking into a satellite radio, his posture tense, his head constantly turning toward the avenue.
"He's running point on the exterior perimeter," Marcus whispered, lowering the glass. "That means Bartholomew is already inside, down in the catacombs. He wouldn't risk being caught on the street."
"How do we get Chloe inside without Lev spotting us?" I asked.
Chloe was sitting on a mattress in the corner of the abandoned room, eating crackers from my coat pocket. She was calm, but every time the sirens in the distance wailed, her fingers tightened around the fabric of her sleeve.
"We don't use the street," Marcus said. He pulled up an old property map on his encrypted tablet. "In the 1920s during Prohibition, the breweries along Tenth Avenue dug underground supply passages to move kegs from the rail spurs directly into speakeasies. One of those passages runs from the basement of the printing warehouse next door straight through the foundation wall of Saint Jude's crypt."
"Is it open?"
"My father sealed it with a cinderblock partition in 1988," Marcus said, checking his sidearm—a customized SIG Sauer P226. He chambered a round with a crisp, metallic snap. "A single sledgehammer blow to the mortar line will bring it down."
"Marcus," I said, putting a hand on his forearm. "Bartholomew said if we don't bring Chloe, Sarah dies. But if we bring Chloe directly into the crypt, we hand him the only leverage we have left."
Marcus turned his head, his gray eyes locking onto mine with absolute, uncompromising intensity. "Sarah would rather die in that vault than let Bartholomew lay a finger on our daughter. We aren't trading Chloe."
"Then what are we doing?"
"We're executing a breach," Marcus said. "I go through the warehouse passage and eliminate Bartholomew's personal detail before they can reach the detonator console. You stay in the upper organ loft with Chloe. From the loft, you have a direct sightline to the altar stairs and the carillon chime panel."
"The sequence," I said, realizing his plan. "I need to be at the bell control."
"Exactly," Marcus said. "When the clock strikes noon, the automated purge timer will initiate its sixty-second countdown. You input the chime sequence: seven, four, nine, two, six, one. That disarms the halon system. Once the gas is disabled, I open the blast doors with the brass cylinder from Chloe's locket."
"And Lev?"
A cold, feral smile touched the corner of Marcus's mouth. "Lev will be busy."
Marcus tapped the radio on his chest, switching to a secured civilian band. "Reid. Jackson. This is Vance."
A static-laced voice came back: "We're in position on 43rd, Boss. Three tow trucks, fully loaded."
"Hit their convoy," Marcus ordered coldly. "Right now."
Through the window, I watched the intersection of 44th and Ninth Avenue explode into sudden, deafening chaos.
A massive, rusted commercial flatbed truck roared around the corner, blowing through the red light at forty miles an hour. It didn't brake. With a screech of tearing metal that echoed down the concrete canyon, the truck slammed head-on into the lead Escalade, crumpling its engine block and spinning it sideways across the street.
Before Lev and his men could draw their weapons, a second flatbed barreled into the rear of the third SUV, pinning the entire convoy in a sandwich of crushed steel and shattering safety glass.
Shouts, gunshots, and the shrieking of car alarms erupted on the pavement below. Lev was thrown against the church steps, scrambling to unholster his firearm as smoke from ruptured radiators engulfed the block.
"Move!" Marcus commanded, grabbing our go-bag.
May you like
He scooped Chloe into his left arm, grabbed my wrist with his right, and led us down the tenement stairwell toward the basement tunnel that would take us into the belly of Saint Jude's.
***
