Chapter 6 - The Midnight Siege
“Emma, take the babies into the reinforced bathroom pantry,” I commanded in a low, lethal whisper, pulling the Glock 19 from my waistband and racking the slide with a crisp, metallic clatter. “Lock the interior deadbolt. Do not open that door for anyone unless you hear my voice give the code phrase: Shenandoah.”
Emma didn't freeze. She scooped Noah into her left arm, grabbed Lily by the wrist with her right, and moved with silent, ghost-like speed down the darkened hallway into the bathroom pantry. The heavy pocket door slid shut and the deadbolt engaged with a muted click.
I moved to the front corner window, pressing my back against the pine logs, peering through the three-inch gap between the heavy velvet curtains.
Through the infrared night-vision display on Emma’s laptop, which was still running on battery power on the dining table, I saw three figures moving across the snow-dusted clearing.
They weren't common street thugs. They wore matching black tactical jackets, thermal balaclavas, and carried suppressed short-barreled carbines. They moved in a staggered tactical wedge—professional corporate contractors.
Cody Mercer had sent his cleaners to retrieve the Pelican case and ensure that no witnesses survived to testify before the federal grand jury in the morning.
I reached beneath the edge of the dining table and flipped the toggle on my hardwired fiber-optic emergency transmitter.
The blue LED flared once: SIGNAL TRANSMITTED. POLICE DISPATCH NOTIFIED.
Twelve minutes.
I had to hold this fortress for twelve minutes.
The front porch floorboards groaned beneath a heavy boot.
Thump. Thump.
A heavy hydraulic ram struck the center of the reinforced steel-core door. The wood groaned, the heavy frame shuddering violently, but the three-point commercial deadbolts held firm.
“David Blake!” a muffled voice called out through the oak panels. “We don't want the children! Slide the black Pelican case out through the dog door on the back deck, and we walk away! You have sixty seconds!”
I didn't answer. In tactical defense, speaking is surrender of position.
I shifted to the secondary firing angle overlooking the wraparound porch.
Crash!
A flashbang grenade shattered the kitchen window at the rear of the cabin, detonating in a blinding eruption of white magnesium fire and a deafening, concussive roar that rattled the dishes in the cupboards.
Smoke billowed into the great room, acrid and chemical, smelling of sulfur.
A black-clad operative vaulted through the shattered kitchen frame, his carbine leveled, sweeping the room.
I stepped out from behind the stone hearth, brought my sights to bear on his center mass, and squeezed the trigger twice.
Crack! Crack!
The heavy 9mm rounds struck his tactical armor with brutal kinetic force. The impact threw him backward against the stainless steel refrigerator, his carbine clattering onto the linoleum. He scrambled for his sidearm, but I closed the distance in two strides, driving the heel of my tactical boot into his sternum, pinning him to the floor.
“Drop it!” I roared, pressing the hot barrel of my weapon against his temple.
Through the broken kitchen window, a second assailant fired a burst of suppressed rounds.
Pfft-pfft-pfft!
The rounds stitched through the pine cabinetry above my head, raining splinters and pulverized drywall down on my shoulders.
I dove behind the thick fieldstone peninsula, dragging the fallen operative’s carbine with me.
Suddenly, from the darkness of the front living room, the main door gave way.
The heavy hinges sheared off under a second breaching charge, crashing inward onto the hardwood floor with an explosive bang.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the cold moonlight and swirling snow, was Cody Mercer.
He wasn't wearing a Tom Ford suit anymore. He wore a dark tactical overcoat, his eyes wild, bloodshot, and burning with manic desperation. In his right hand, he held a sleek chrome revolver. Flanking him was his lead contractor.
“Where is the drive, David?” Mercer shouted, his voice cracking with hysterical rage. “The feds are freezing my accounts! My passport is flagged! Give me the drive, and I let you and your brats live!”
“You're too late, Cody!” I called out from behind the stone hearth, my voice steady, echoing off the high timber ceilings. “The emergency uplink triggered six minutes ago! State police tactical units are on the access road!”
“Kill him!” Mercer screamed, pointing his revolver toward the fireplace. “Burn the whole damn house down!”
The contractor raised his carbine, advancing across the living room.
Before he could round the stone corner, the deafening scream of emergency sirens tore through the freezing night.
High-intensity spotlights flooded the cabin windows, illuminating the swirling smoke in brilliant, blinding white shafts.
“NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE TACTICAL UNIT! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND GET ON THE GROUND! DROP YOUR WEAPONS NOW!”
The contractor froze, looking toward the open front door where four tactical armored vehicles had just skidded to a halt on the snow, their roof-mounted turret guns trained on the porch.
Mercer panicked. He turned and sprinted toward the rear deck, leaping over the wooden railing into the dark woods.
“I’m going after him!” I shouted, stepping out from behind the hearth as six heavily armed state troopers in full tactical gear swarmed through the shattered front entrance, zip-tying the contractor to the floor.
“Clear! Suspect on the ground!” a trooper yelled.
Detective Marcus Miller sprinted through the front door, wearing a ballistic vest, his sidearm drawn. “David! Where’s Mercer?”
“He ran into the hemlock grove!”
Miller and I bolted through the kitchen door onto the snow-covered rear deck.
Fifty yards into the dark forest, Cody Mercer was stumbling through the deep snow, slipping on hidden roots, clutching his chrome revolver.
“Mercer!” Miller roared, raising his weapon. “Stop right there or I will fire!”
Mercer spun around, his boots slipping on the frozen ice of the creek bed. He raised his revolver toward Miller, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Crack!
Miller fired a single, surgical round.
The bullet struck Mercer cleanly in his right shoulder. The kinetic shock spun him around, the revolver flying from his hand, splashing into the icy, shallow waters of the creek.
Mercer collapsed face-first into the snow, groaning in agony, clutching his bleeding arm.
Miller closed the distance in seconds, pinning Mercer’s back with his knee, wrenching his arms behind him, and clicking the heavy steel cuffs shut with a savage, definitive snap.
“Cody Mercer,” Miller said, breathing hard in the freezing air, “you are under arrest for attempted capital murder, corporate espionage, and federal wire fraud.”
I walked up to the edge of the creek bed, looking down at the broken, shivering man who had tried to erase my family from the earth.
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Mercer looked up through the snow, blood dripping from his lips, his teeth chattering in the cold. “She... she planned it all, David... Amanda... Amanda told me you were weak... she said you’d just roll over and die...”
“My family doesn't roll over,” I said softly, looking down at him with pure, untainted contempt. “And my children will never know your name.”
