Chapter 7 - The Vanishing Ambulance
Outside in the torrential rain, the heavy iron gates of the Carrow estate stood wide open, their hydraulic arms bent and warped where Captain Vance’s cruisers had forced them aside.
Eli stood under the covered portico, watching the white-and-orange ambulance idle near the stone fountain.
His small hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his dust-covered hoodie, his fingers nervously fidgeting with the heavy silver key his grandfather had given him.
He watched the two paramedics through the rain-streaked rear windows of the emergency vehicle.
Something felt fundamentally wrong to Eli's sharp, observant eyes.
The paramedic in the driver’s seat had not turned on the siren, nor had he called into the regional dispatch on the vehicle's dashboard radio.
Instead, the man was tapping frantically on a military-grade satellite phone, his gaze constantly shifting between his rearview mirror and the front doors of the mansion.
Eli stepped closer to the edge of the stone steps, ignoring the cold rain that splashed against his sneakers.
He looked at the side door of the ambulance where the municipal medical registry decal was displayed.
The lettering read Dutchess County Emergency Medical Services, but the plastic film around the logo was peeling at the edges, revealing fresh adhesive lines underneath.
It was a magnetic cover slapped over an older, darker paint job.
Eli turned his head toward the mansion’s entrance, intending to shout for his father or Captain Vance.
Before he could open his mouth, the engine of the ambulance roared to life with a violent, throaty growl.
The exhaust pipe coughed out a cloud of black smoke as the vehicle dropped into reverse, tires spinning wildly on the wet gravel.
Inside the back of the ambulance, Arthur was strapped to the gurney, his face still covered by the oxygen mask.
Eli saw his grandfather’s arm flail against the interior window, knocking his hand against the glass in two frantic, muffled thuds.
"Dad!" Eli screamed, his voice cracking against the downpour.
"Dad! They're taking him! That's not the real hospital!"
Marcus and Captain Vance burst through the double oak doors, their weapons drawn as they hit the wet stone terrace.
"Stop that vehicle!" Vance roared, leveling his service pistol at the front tires of the departing ambulance.
The driver did not slow down; he slammed his foot onto the accelerator, swinging the heavy vehicle around the perimeter of the stone fountain in a spray of water and mud.
The passenger-side window rolled down three inches, and the barrel of a suppressed submachine gun poked through the crack.
A rapid series of muffled pops tore through the wet air, chewing into the brick pillars of the portico and showering Eli with concrete fragments.
Marcus tackled Eli to the stone floor, shielding his son’s body with his own back as the bullets ricocheted off the grand entrance.
Captain Vance fired three return shots into the rear tires, but the vehicle was fitted with heavy run-flat tactical tires that absorbed the kinetic impact.
The ambulance surged forward, smashing through the ornamental iron lampposts at the edge of the driveway, and roared out onto the dark, winding country road.
Within seconds, the red taillights vanished into the thick Hudson Valley fog.
Vance scrambled to his feet, pulling his tactical radio from his vest and shouting code-red emergency alerts to every state police unit in the tri-state area.
"All units, this is Vance!
We have an officer-involved shooting and an armed kidnapping in progress!
Suspects are operating a disguised commercial ambulance heading south toward Route 9!
Subject Arthur Carrow has been taken by armed hostiles!
Establish roadblocks at the Mid-Hudson Bridge and the Beacon interchange immediately!"
Marcus stood up slowly, pulling Eli to his feet, his hands shaking with an adrenaline-fueled terror that made his knees buckle.
They had found Arthur.
They had pulled him from the wall.
And in less than twenty minutes, the monsters who owned their family had ripped him away all over again.
Susan, still handcuffed near the interior threshold, let out another cold, spiteful cackle that echoed through the rain.
"I told you, Marcus," she yelled through the wind.
"Julian doesn't leave loose ends.
He brought his own extraction team.
You think you won because an eleven-year-old child found a hidden door?
Julian owns the roads in this county.
He owns the docks on the river.
You will never see Father alive again, and by morning, you will be the one blamed for his murder."
Marcus turned toward Susan, his face utterly expressionless, the gentleness of his old life burned away by the gunfire and the smell of sulfur.
He walked back into the hall, stepped right past Susan, and picked up Vincent’s discarded leather portfolio from the sideboard.
He flipped through the remaining sheets until he found the personal log Vincent had kept of Julian's recent corporate communications.
At the bottom of a handwritten legal brief was an address written in blue ink: Pier 44, Kingston Deepwater Terminal.
That terminal was the oldest private industrial shipyard Arthur had purchased back in 1978, a decommissioned coal shipping facility that had been closed to the public for fifteen years.
Marcus shoved the paper into his pocket, took Eli by the wrist, and walked straight toward Vance’s unmarked cruiser parked at the bottom of the steps.
"Captain," Marcus said, his voice as hard and unyielding as granite.
May you like
"Give me your spare radio and get in the car.
I know exactly where my brother is taking him."
