Chapter 7 - THE AMBUSH AT THE DRY DOCK
The blinding glare of four industrial halogen lamps mounted on the overhead gantry slammed on simultaneously.
Claire was instantly bathed in painful, white-hot brilliance.
Her eyes burned from the sudden glare, but her body reacted purely on muscle memory.
She did not drop her weapon.
She threw herself sideways behind a stack of rusted steel plates as the first high-velocity round tore through the concrete where she had stood.
The deafening crack of a suppressed rifle echoed against the metal walls.
Sparks flew from the steel plates, the bullet ricocheting with an angry, high-pitched scream.
Julian Reed threw himself backward in the wooden chair, toppling onto his side to escape the crossfire.
"Step out with your hands up, Bennett!" the loudspeaker bellowed from the upper catwalk.
"You are obstructing an official state security operation!"
The voice was unmistakable.
It was Lieutenant Frank Miller.
Her own commanding officer was directing a kill squad against an active detective.
Claire pressed her shoulder hard against the cold steel plates, regulating her breath.
Four seconds in.
Four seconds out.
"Miller!" Claire shouted, projecting her voice toward the gantry while keeping her body hidden.
"You took an oath on the state constitution!"
"That oath doesn't pay for private retirement in Zurich, Claire!" Miller’s voice echoed down from the shadows.
"You were supposed to be a good little maid who found an old man dead of natural causes!"
"You had to go and play hero at the dinner table!"
A second rifle round slammed into the corner of her cover, spraying concrete dust into her hair.
Claire counted the muzzle flashes in her mind.
Two shooters on the upper gantry.
One shooter near the north exit door.
And Miller directing the fire from the crane control booth.
They had created an interlocking field of fire designed to pin her until a flanker moved in from the blind side.
Her Glock held fifteen rounds of nine-millimeter hollow-point ammunition.
Against three tactical rifles with body armor, she was severely outmatched.
Suddenly, from the broken skylight fifty feet above the warehouse floor, a deafening explosion shattered the glass.
A massive shower of jagged shards rained down into the center of the warehouse.
A high-caliber rifle report boomed like thunder through the cavernous space.
On the upper catwalk, the first tactical shooter screamed, his rifle tumbling over the iron railing and crashing into the concrete floor below.
The shooter collapsed backward, clutching his shoulder as dark blood sprayed across the corrugated wall.
Matteo Romano had entered the game.
He had climbed the exterior fire escape and positioned himself on the structural iron framework above the skylight.
"Hostile on the roof!" Miller roared over the radio system.
"Shift fire to the upper rafters!"
The second gantry shooter swung his barrel upward toward the skylight.
That split second was all Claire needed.
She stepped out from behind the steel plates, acquired her sight picture, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Her rounds struck the second shooter’s exposed thigh and lower abdomen below his tactical vest.
The man dropped to his knees, dropping his weapon and groaning in agony.
The warehouse erupted into chaotic gunfire.
The third shooter near the north door opened full automatic fire toward Claire’s position, driving her back behind the iron plates.
Wood splinters and concrete chunks flew through the air like shrapnel.
Claire reached into her tactical vest pocket and pulled out a flash-bang grenade.
She pulled the safety pin with her thumb, cooked the lever for one second, and banked the canister off the concrete floor toward the north door.
A blinding white flash illuminated the entire warehouse, followed by a concussive blast that rattled Claire’s teeth inside her skull.
The gunfire from the north door ceased abruptly, replaced by the disoriented cries of the stunned shooter.
Claire broke cover and sprinted across the open floor directly toward Julian Reed.
She slid onto her knees beside the fallen attorney.
She pulled her tactical folding knife from her belt and sliced through the nylon zip-ties binding his wrists and ankles.
She ripped the duct tape from his mouth with a swift, merciless jerk.
Julian gasped for air, coughing violently as tears streamed down his bruised face.
"Claire... Claire, get out of here!" Julian choked out, grabbing her tactical vest with trembling fingers.
"Where is Samuel, Julian?" Claire demanded, her voice cutting through the ringing in her ears.
"He isn't here!" Julian cried.
"This was an ambush to eliminate you and retrieve my briefcase!"
"They took Samuel to the old municipal pumping facility at the saltmarshes!"
"Raymond and Miller have him there right now!"
"They are forcing his biometric thumbprint onto the irrevocable trust transfer!"
Before Claire could answer, an incendiary canister bounced across the concrete floor and exploded five yards away.
A wall of chemical fire erupted instantly, spreading across the oil-soaked floorboards toward the dry dock timbers.
Thick, black, choking smoke billowed toward the high ceiling.
"Move!" Claire yelled, hauling the battered lawyer to his feet with one arm while keeping her Glock raised.
Above them, Matteo’s rifle cracked two more times, shattering the searchlights and plunging the warehouse into smoke-filled darkness.
"Claire! South exit!" Matteo’s voice echoed from the iron rafters above.
"The whole structure is going up in flames!"
Claire pulled Julian through the blinding smoke toward the rusted emergency exit.
The heat at her back was intense, singeing the wool of her tactical jacket.
She kicked the emergency exit bar with all her weight.
The rusted door flew open into the cold, torrential rain.
Julian collapsed onto the wet gravel, vomiting from smoke inhalation.
Claire turned back toward the burning doorway, her weapon raised, waiting for Matteo.
A shadow dropped from the lower iron fire escape ten feet above the ground, landing with athletic balance on the gravel.
Matteo Romano stepped into the rain, his carbine lowered, his face smudged with black soot.
His gray eyes locked onto Claire through the darkness.
"Is he alive?" Matteo asked, looking at the lawyer.
May you like
"He is alive," Claire answered, wiping rain and gunpowder residue from her forehead.
"And we know where your grandfather is."
