Chapter 13 - The Ambush on the River Turnpike
The storm over the city had turned into a howling gale of freezing rain and sleet.
Roman’s heavy armored SUV tore through the flooded streets of the industrial harbor, throwing walls of muddy water onto the abandoned factory walls.
Matteo sat behind the wheel, his knuckles white as he pushed the supercharged engine to eighty miles per hour through the slick curves.
Roman sat in the front passenger seat, checking the actions on two tactical carbines with cold, rhythmic efficiency.
In the rear, Grace sat beside Frank Doyle.
Grace held an encrypted tactical radio in her lap, listening to the frantic chatter of the state troopers stationed at Saint Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
"Command, this is Post Four at the pediatric wing," a trooper’s voice crackled through static.
"We have lost power to the south elevators!"
"Two black tactical vans just rammed through the ambulance bay gates!"
"Multiple hostiles wearing unmarked body armor and night optics!"
"They are deploying chemical smoke on the third floor!"
Roman seized the radio transmitter.
"Sergeant, this is Roman Moretti," Roman commanded into the microphone.
"Do not engage them in the open corridors."
"Fall back to room three-fourteen."
"Barricade the heavy steel fire doors and hold the high ground until my vehicle breaches the courtyard."
"We are four minutes out!"
"Understood, Mr. Moretti," the sergeant replied, the sound of automatic gunfire already rattling through the transmission.
"They're using suppressed weapons!"
"They've breached the nurses' station!"
The radio died in a burst of harsh white noise.
Roman threw the microphone onto the console and looked back at Grace.
"Miller was Kane’s primary enforcer for ten years," Roman explained, his voice tight with controlled rage.
"He knows that if the grand jury hears Ethan’s testimony alongside the tapes, every officer in Kane’s tactical wing will be executed for state treason."
"He is trying to wipe the board clean."
"He wants to slaughter Ethan, take the hospital floor hostage, and force the attorney general to negotiate an extraction corridor to Mexico."
Grace leaned forward, her eyes burning with fierce resolve.
"They are not touching that boy," Grace said.
"Ethan was the only person in this city who showed mercy to Frank when everyone else forgot he existed."
"He shared his food through an iron fence while grown men were planning murders."
"I am not letting them hurt him."
Frank Doyle checked the cylinder of his restored service revolver, snapping the heavy steel cylinder shut with a sharp metallic click.
"Miller’s team will have snipers posted on the elevated parking garage overlooking the hospital entrance," Frank said.
"If we drive straight through the front ambulance bay, they will shred our engine block with armor-piercing rounds."
"How do we get in?" Matteo asked, drifting the heavy SUV around a waterlogged freight terminal.
"The old laundry steam tunnels," Frank replied instantly.
"The hospital was built on the old municipal rail spur in nineteen sixty."
"The laundry boiler room connects directly to the harbor coal docks beneath Pier Nine."
"We go under their snipers and hit their rear guard from the basement."
Roman glanced at Matteo.
"Take the dock ramp."
Matteo jerked the steering wheel hard to the right.
The SUV leaped over the concrete curb, skidding down the slick asphalt ramp that descended into the dark industrial underbelly of Pier 9.
They screeched to a halt beside a rusted iron maintenance portal marked with faded municipal hazard warnings.
Roman kicked the door open and stepped out into the freezing sleet.
He tossed a lightweight tactical vest to Grace.
"Put this on," Roman commanded.
Grace slipped the heavy kevlar vest over her coat, pulling the velcro straps tight across her ribs.
She took a compact nine-millimeter sidearm that Roman offered her, checking the magazine catch just as Frank had shown her during their brief transit from the federal bunker.
"Remember," Frank said softly, looking at Grace.
"Smooth trigger pull."
"Two hands on the grip."
"Do not hesitate if a weapon points toward that boy."
"I won't," Grace said.
They descended into the concrete steam tunnel, the air instantly turning hot, humid, and thick with the hiss of high-pressure pipes.
Above their heads, the dull, vibrating thuds of breaching charges and automatic gunfire echoed through the concrete floorboards.
They moved quickly, their tactical boots splashing through warm condensation pools along the narrow walkway.
At the end of the tunnel, a steel service ladder led up to the heavy cast-iron trapdoor of the hospital’s commercial laundry facility.
Roman climbed the rungs like a shadow, placing his shoulder against the iron plate.
He eased the hatch open two inches.
Through the gap, the laundry room was filled with drifting white smoke and the flashing red strobes of the building’s emergency alarm system.
Two mercenary operatives in black tactical gear stood near the service elevator, their assault rifles raised toward the upper stairs.
"Two hostiles at nine o'clock," Roman whispered down the ladder.
Roman threw the hatch open and vaulted onto the tiled floor in a single explosive motion.
His suppressed carbine fired two rhythmic, double-tapped shots into the center mass of the lead operative before the man could raise his weapon.
The second mercenary spun around, but Frank Doyle emerged from the hatch right behind Roman, his old revolver roaring with deafening thunder.
The heavy lead round struck the second operative's tactical vest, knocking him off his feet into a commercial linen bin.
Matteo and Grace scrambled out onto the floor, securing the corridor.
"Stairs are clear!" Matteo called out.
They sprinted up the concrete emergency stairwell, taking three steps at a time.
On the third floor, the heavy fire doors had been blown off their hinges by high-explosive breaching charges.
Ceiling tiles hung by exposed electrical wires, and medical equipment lay overturned in pools of water from the triggered sprinkler systems.
Down the corridor, five armed men were setting a magnetic shaped charge on the reinforced door of room 314.
Behind that door, Ethan Moretti was trapped.
At the head of the mercenary squad stood Captain Miller, a hulking tactical officer with a scarred neck and an automatic shotgun.
"Blow the hinges!" Miller shouted over the screaming sirens.
"Get the boy and bag him!"
Grace did not wait for Roman’s tactical order.
The sight of armed executioners preparing to murder the gentle boy who had secretly pushed roast chicken sandwiches through the garden fence ignited something primal inside her.
Grace stepped out from the stairwell alcove, raised her weapon with both hands, and fired three rapid shots into the magnetic charge mechanism on the door frame.
The high-velocity rounds shattered the electronic detonator before the timer could trigger the explosive.
Miller whipped around in shock.
"Ambush!" Miller roared.
The hallway erupted into an inferno of muzzle flashes, deafening gunfire, and shattering glass.
Roman and Matteo advanced down the corridor like an unstoppable tactical storm, laying down overwhelming, precise fire that pinned Miller’s squad behind the steel medical carts.
Frank Doyle flanked from the left linen corridor, using thirty years of precinct combat experience to outmaneuver the mercenary point-man.
Miller raised his heavy shotgun toward Grace, but Roman threw himself across the corridor, driving his shoulder into Miller’s chest with the force of a battering ram.
The two men crashed through the drywall of an empty examination room, locked in savage hand-to-hand combat.
Miller drew a combat knife, slashing viciously toward Roman’s throat, but Roman caught the man's wrist, driving a brutal knee into his ribs.
With a sickening snap, Roman disarmed the mercenary captain and drove his head through the heavy mahogany desk.
Miller went limp, collapsing onto the shattered drywall.
Outside in the hallway, the remaining mercenaries lay disarmed or neutralized beneath Matteo’s and Frank’s steady sights.
The hallway fell into an abrupt, ringing silence, broken only by the hiss of water from the ceiling sprinklers.
Grace stepped toward the scorched door of room 314.
Her hands were trembling, but her breath was steady.
She knocked softly on the dented steel panel.
"Ethan?" Grace called out gently.
"It's Grace."
"Your dad is here."
A second of silence passed.
Then, the heavy internal slide bolt pulled back with a metallic click.
The reinforced door swung open.
Ethan stood in the doorway, clutching his navy school backpack to his chest, his eyes wide and red from the smoke.
When he saw Grace and Roman standing in the hallway, his trembling face broke into an overwhelming sob.
He ran forward and threw his arms around Grace’s waist, burying his face into her tactical vest.
"You came," Ethan cried, his small body shaking.
"I knew you would come, Grace."
"I knew you wouldn't leave me."
Grace dropped to her knees in the wet hallway, wrapping her arms tightly around the boy, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks.
"Never, Ethan," Grace whispered into his dark hair.
"We are never leaving you again."
Roman knelt beside them, placing his broad hand over Ethan’s back and his other hand over Grace’s shoulder.
May you like
Frank Doyle stood at the end of the ruined corridor, lowering his smoking revolver, a tear cutting a clean path through the gunpowder residue on his wrinkled face.
The long war for the Moretti bloodline had just reached its final battlefield.
