Chapter 23 - Ambush on Route 30
The black-ops helicopter cut a silent path through the stormy night skies over the Midwest, touching down in an abandoned agricultural field three miles outside of Joliet, Illinois, where Julian Moreau was waiting with a pair of unmarked, heavy-duty municipal transport trucks.
We didn’t waste a single second. We transferred into the trucks, speeding through the dark, rain-slicked backroads of Route 30 toward the county medical center where the police convoy was scheduled to deposit my father and Judge Harrison.
According to Julian’s real-time police scanner intercepts, the convoy had been forced to take an alternate route due to a staged semi-truck accident blocking the primary interstate overpass—a classic tactical bottleneck designed to trap high-value targets.
“They’re walking right into the trap,” Julian muttered from the driver’s seat of our lead vehicle, his eyes glued to the illuminated GPS map. “Sterling’s men have locked down a quarter-mile stretch of the two-lane state highway near the old limestone quarry.”
“Not if we get there first,” I said, checking the chamber of my Sig Sauer.
We crested a rolling hill just as the flashing red-and-blue strobes of a local police cruiser came into view below. Parked across the narrow asphalt highway were two black SUVs bearing Vanguard Holdings plates, their doors open and their armed occupants deployed in a tactical crossfire formation flanking the police transport van.
“They’re about to breach the van,” Ethan warned, his hand resting on the dashboard.
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“Break formation!” I ordered. “Ram the rear SUV!”
Julian didn't hesitate. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, roaring down the incline at seventy miles per hour. Before the Vanguard mercenaries could realize they were being flanked from behind, our heavy-duty truck slammed directly into the rear bumper of their lead SUV with a thunderous crunch of metal and shattering glass, sending it careening off the asphalt into the muddy ditch.
