Chapter 5 - The Final Override
Vanessa froze, her body stiffening as she held my newborn babies tight against her chest. I forced my heavy eyelids open, turning my head against the frost-covered floor.
Michael was back on his feet.
He was swaying slightly, his nose broken and bleeding profusely, staining his shirt a dark crimson. But in his right hand, he held the heavy steel wrench he had managed to drag across the ice. And in his left hand, he held Vanessa’s dropped smartphone, its screen glowing brightly in the dark warehouse.
"Impressive delivery," Michael sneered, his voice dripping with a sickening, casual malice. He wiped the blood from his lip, stepping closer and kicking the open freezer door panel. With a loud, mechanical whine, the heavy motorized deadbolts slid halfway across the track.
"Michael, don't you dare," Vanessa hissed, her eyes blazing with pure venom as she tried to shield my babies with her own body. "You're already looking at federal capital murder and conspiracy charges. If you touch these children, there is nowhere on earth you will ever hide."
"Who said anything about hiding?" Michael laughed coldly, tapping the screen of Vanessa’s phone. "The warehouse security system has been manually reset from my remote app. The cooling units are locked at maximum output. Minus sixty degrees by midnight."
He stepped back toward the threshold, his hand hovering over the exterior control panel.
"You two gave me a lot of trouble tonight," Michael said, his thumb resting over the emergency lockdown button. "Too bad nobody checks the inventory logs on a Tuesday."
Before I could speak, the sharp, wailing sirens of multiple police cruisers suddenly pierced the night outside, their flashing red and blue lights painting the warehouse windows in violent strokes of color.
Michael’s face drained of color. He spun around toward the loading bay doors just as heavy tactical boots slammed against the concrete outside.
"FBI! Federal custody! Drop the weapon!" a voice roared through the warehouse PA system.
Michael panicked, lunging forward to slam the freezer door shut, but as he reached for the manual lever, a shadow detached itself from the warehouse rafters above him.
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A figure dropped cleanly from the overhead crane track, landing squarely on Michael's shoulders and driving him face-first into the freezing concrete with a bone-crunching slam.
As Michael groaned in pain and the heavy steel door began to close on its own automatic timer, I looked up at the man standing in the doorway holding a smoking service weapon, and my heart completely stopped.
