Chapter 4 - The Ambush at the Docks
The blinding glare of the sedan headlights painted long, distorted shadows across the corrugated steel walls of the warehouse. Tires screeched to a halt on the wet gravel outside, followed immediately by the heavy slamming of doors and the crisp, unmistakable sound of rifle bolts racking home.
Cole cursed under his breath, shoving Victor’s thrashing body behind a concrete pillar and drawing his sidearm with lightning speed.
"Ambush!" Cole shouted over the howling wind. "Ross, get the boy back behind the perimeter wall!"
"Dad!" Lucas screamed, burying his face against my chest as a volley of suppressed gunfire suddenly chewed through the corrugated siding above us, sending a shower of metal shards and dust raining down onto our heads.
I clutched my son tighter, dropping low to the concrete floor and scrambling behind a massive steel shipping container near the back corner of the warehouse. The air grew thick with the acrid smell of cordite and burning rubber.
"Cole! Who are they?" I yelled, peeking around the edge of the container while keeping Lucas entirely shielded by my body.
"Not local muscle!" Cole fired two controlled shots through a broken window, dropping a shadowy figure outside. "Those are private security contractors! Elite tier! Someone tipped them off the second we hit the wire!"
My mind raced through the roster of suspects. Not Victor. Victor was a low-level grifter who couldn't organize a two-car funeral. This was professional. This was corporate-grade wet-work.
Elena.
If Elena was still on the phone with Victor when we breached, she had instantly alerted her primary handlers—the same shadowy syndicate behind the Vances' offshore laundering. And that meant the person who really controlled this operation wasn't miles away in Europe. They were right here in Chicago.
"Ross! Cover me! I'm moving to the side exit!" Cole barked, firing another magazine into the darkness outside.
"Go!" I shouted.
I gripped my Glock with one hand while holding Lucas securely with the other, leaning around the steel container and squeezing off three rapid shots toward the flash of a muzzle near the main loading bay. A man in tactical black dropped out of sight behind a stack of wooden pallets.
"Hold on to me, Lucas! Don't let go!" I told my son, whose small body was trembling violently against mine.
"I'm holding on, Dad! Don't let them take me!" he cried, his tears soaking through the fabric of my ruined shirt.
A heavy boot suddenly stomped onto the metal roof of our shipping container. A muffled voice shouted orders down through an open ventilation grate overhead.
"Sweep the corners! The CEO and the kid are in the back! Secure the boy, eliminate the rest!"
Before the mercenaries could drop down through the vent, the warehouse doors at the opposite end rattled with a violent, metallic crash.
Sirens began to wail in the distance—faint at first, then growing into a deafening wall of sound as a half-dozen marked Chicago Police cruisers and federal tactical vans swarmed the rail yard with red and blue lights strobing across the night sky.
The mercenaries outside hesitated, caught between our defensive fire and the arrival of actual law enforcement.
"Federal backup!" Cole shouted over the din, firing a smoke grenade out the shattered window. "They're falling back! Ross, now! Move!"
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I didn't wait. With Lucas locked safely in my arms, I sprinted toward the side exit where Cole was holding the door open against the raging storm, plunging back out into the rain toward the safety of our armored SUV.
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