Chapter 4 - The Ironworks Siege
We tracked the drainage line fifty feet farther until it terminated at a broken access hatch leading directly into an abandoned maintenance room behind the main assembly floor.
Marcus pushed the rusted steel hatch open, his suppressed rifle leading the way. The room was empty—stacked high with wooden pallets, broken machinery parts, and discarded oil drums.
I lifted Theo up out of the hatch, followed by Ranger. My four operators fanned out, clearing the corners with mechanical precision.
“Clear,” Marcus whispered.
I stepped up onto the concrete floor, wiping grease from my tactical gloves. The air inside the warehouse was cold, smelling of old motor oil and burnt dust. Through the cracked glass windows of the maintenance room door, I could see the vast expanse of the central floor.
It was a nightmare of rusty steel rafters, overhead cranes, and stacks of shipping crates. In the center of the floor, illuminated by three powerful halogens mounted on tripods, sat two small wooden chairs.
Tied to the chairs with heavy nylon rope were two children.
My heart nearly stopped in my chest.
Ruby sat on the left chair. Her pink party dress was torn and covered in soot, her hair tangled, but her eyes were open. Beside her sat a tiny boy with dark, messy hair and a wooden robin toy protruding from his jacket pocket—Leo. He was crying quietly, his small frame shaking, but Ruby was leaning as far as her ropes would allow, whispering to him and trying to shield his face from the harsh halogen lights.
“Look at me, Leo,” Ruby’s small, sweet voice echoed faintly across the concrete floor. “Look at me, not them. My daddy is coming. He’s really big and he’s going to fix everything.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes, but I swallowed them down, hardening my heart into pure flint. She believed in me. She was holding on because she knew her father would come.
Standing around the children were six heavily armed mercenaries in tactical gear. Standing directly in front of them, holding a satellite phone and smoking a thick cigar, was Arthur Vance.
Vance had aged terribly over the last decade. His hair was completely white, his skin leathered and scarred, but his eyes retained the same psychotic, megalomaniacal glare that had made him a monster twenty years ago.
“Where is the transport boat?” Vance roared into the satellite phone, slamming his hand against a metal workbench. “We have three hours before dawn! If that boat isn't at the dock by 2:30 AM, I’ll kill the crew myself!”
He clicked off the phone and shoved it into his trench coat. He walked over to Ruby, reaching out with a thick, calloused hand to grab her chin.
“Don't touch her!” little Leo screamed, kicking his small sneakers against the chair legs. “Leave her alone!”
Vance laughed, a dry, rasping sound, and backhanded the four-year-old boy across the face. Leo let out a sharp cry of pain, his head snapping back.
Beside me, Theo let out a choked gasp, his hand instantly reaching for the door handle. I grabbed his shoulder, pinning him firmly behind my hip.
“Wait,” I whispered into his ear, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. “If we rush out blind, they use the kids as shields. Let me set the trap.”
I turned to Marcus. “You and two men take the elevated catwalk on the right. Target the four mercenaries around the perimeter. Me and the other two will take the main floor. The second the lights go out, we breach.”
“What about Vance?” Marcus asked.
“Vance is mine,” I said chillingly. “Alive or dead, he belongs to me.”
Marcus nodded, leading his two operators up a rusted steel ladder leading toward the roof rafters.
I looked down at Theo. “Stay in this room with Ranger. Do not come out until I call your name. Once the shooting starts, pull this table over and hide beneath it.”
Theo looked up at me, tears streaming down his face as he remembered his brother being hit. “Please, Mr. Cross... kill that man.”
“I will,” I promised.
I pulled two flashbang grenades from my tactical vest, handing one to my lead floor operator. We crept out of the maintenance room, hugging the shadows of a stack of shipping crates thirty yards from Vance’s position.
Above us, I saw the faint green reflection of Marcus’s night-vision goggles as he reached his firing position on the overhead crane. He flashed his weapon-mounted laser twice against the dark wall—ready.
May you like
I pulled the pin on my flashbang, held it for one second, and tossed it high into the rafters directly above the halogen lights.
An agonizing, blinding burst of white light exploded overhead, followed by a deafening 160-decibel shockwave that shattered every overhead window in the warehouse.
