Chapter 9 - The Infiltration Of Terminal Street
The storm reached its peak at four in the afternoon, turning the sky over Newark into a dark, bruised canopy of charcoal and sulfur.
The rain slammed against the corrugated roof of the black Chevy van as I turned onto Terminal Street, an industrial corridor bordered by mountain ranges of rusted shipping containers.
Warehouse fourteen rose out of the mist like a concrete fortress, surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire and high-output security floodlights.
Two private security guards in black waterproof ponchos patrolled the perimeter with umbrellas and tactical flashlights, the rectangular silhouettes of short-barreled carbines visible beneath their nylon coats.
I parked the van half a mile down the access road, hidden between two dead tractor trailers sitting on flattened tires.
I grabbed my canvas bag, slid a heavy crowbar and a compact hydraulic jack into a backpack, and stepped out into the knee-deep mud of the drainage ditch.
The cold rainwater soaked through my boots within seconds, but my mind was entirely insulated from physical discomfort.
When a Marine prepares to enter hostile territory, the nervous system filters out extraneous sensory noise, sharpening the senses to focus entirely on terrain, threat vectors, and movement.
I crawled into the concrete mouth of the municipal stormwater culvert that passed beneath the security fence.
The culvert was three feet wide, smelling of diesel exhaust, brackish river sludge, and decomposing debris.
I moved through the darkness on my hands and knees, dragging the canvas gear behind me, the sound of the rain above masked completely by the rushing torrent of runoff water around my shins.
I counted my paces carefully, cross-referencing the distance Hector had measured on the blueprint.
One hundred and twenty yards.
Directly ahead, a faint vertical shaft of amber light penetrated the subterranean gloom, illuminating the rusted crossbars of the vehicle maintenance pit grate.
I stopped, holding my breath, listening through the iron mesh.
Above me, inside the vast warehouse bay, I could hear the rhythmic clatter of pneumatic tools, the hum of an industrial forklift, and two men speaking in harsh, clipped accents.
"The Boss is losing his mind up there," one voice said, accompanied by the metallic clang of a wrench hitting a steel tray.
"He got a call from Philadelphia twenty minutes ago."
"Marcus Vance went dark."
"The whole Tenth Street outfit got raided by feds."
"Marcus is an idiot," the second voice replied, spitting onto the concrete above my head.
"He let his kid nephew run wild with that civilian girl, and now the feds have the whole paper trail."
"Sterling already ordered the offshore accounts transferred."
"We load the last crate of hardware into the boat, and we’re out of this sewer by six o'clock."
"What about the girl in the hospital?"
"Sterling sent Kowalski and two guys from Jersey City an hour ago," the second voice said casually, the sound of a match striking echoing down the drainage pipe.
"They’re gonna hit the hospital room, drop the girl and her mother, and make it look like a botched robbery to keep the old man quiet until we clear territorial waters."
That sentence hit my chest like a shard of shrapnel.
Victor Sterling hadn't waited for the feds to stage their breach.
He had sent killers toward Saint Jude’s an hour ago.
Clara and Marcy were lying in that fourth-floor room, guarded only by two federal marshals who had no idea that professional assassins were already en route from northern New Jersey.
Every second I spent in this culvert was a second closer to my family’s execution.
I didn't wait.
I set the hydraulic jack against the concrete rim of the drainage pipe, seated the steel piston beneath the rusted mounting bracket of the iron grate, and began pumping the lever with rapid, silent strokes.
The twelve-ton hydraulic pressure overcame the rusted iron bolts with a muted, metallic groaning sound that was swallowed entirely by the roar of the forklift across the floor.
The iron grate shifted upward two inches, then four.
I slid the crowbar beneath the loosened rim, pivoted my weight against the concrete wall, and levered the heavy cast-iron plate aside with a sharp, controlled heave.
I pulled myself up out of the darkness and into the vehicle pit, staying crouched behind the massive steel undercarriage of an armored transport van parked on the lift.
The warehouse was massive, spanning sixty thousand square feet of concrete flooring stacked three stories high with wooden shipping crates and steel cargo boxes.
High above the warehouse floor, suspended on steel girders, sat Victor Sterling’s glass-fronted operations office, illuminated by harsh interior halogens.
Through the ballistic glass, I could see Sterling pacing behind a long conference table, clutching a satellite phone to his ear, his sharp features twisted into an expression of frantic, venomous urgency.
On the main floor, six guards were moving between the forklift and the rear loading dock, stacking aluminum flight cases onto heavy rolling carts destined for the river pier.
The two mechanics who had been speaking were standing fifteen feet from my position, their backs turned as they adjusted a hydraulic line on an engine hoist.
I drew my Kimber 1911, screwed the matte-black suppressor onto the threaded barrel with three swift turns, and stepped up out of the service pit like a ghost rising from the floor.
My boots made zero sound on the oil-stained concrete.
I closed the distance behind the nearest mechanic before his peripheral vision could register the shift in light.
My left hand clamped over his mouth, pulling his head back, while the butt of the heavy forty-five struck the base of his skull with surgical precision.
He went limp in my arms without a sound.
I lowered him gently onto the concrete behind the tool chest and pivoted toward the second mechanic.
The second man turned, a wrench in his hand, his eyes widening in pure shock as he saw a sixty-year-old man with a gray beard standing in his workspace with a suppressed weapon leveled at his nose.
"Make a sound," I whispered, "and you die where you stand."
The man dropped the wrench onto his own boot, trembling violently, raising his greasy palms into the air.
"Where did Kowalski go?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
"They... they left for Pennsylvania forty minutes ago," the mechanic stammered, his teeth chattering against each other.
"In a gray Dodge Charger."
"Three guys... they have suppressed MP5s and hospital visitor passes they bought from a custodian."
"They were told to clear room 402."
"Please, man... I just fix the trucks! I don't know nothing about no hits!"
"Tie your hands behind your back with that shop wire," I ordered, gesturing toward the workbench with the barrel of the Kimber.
The mechanic scrambled to obey, looping the heavy electrical wire around his wrists while weeping with terror.
I grabbed a roll of duct tape from the bench, sealed his mouth, and shoved him into the maintenance pit beside the loosened iron grate.
I checked my watch: four-fifteen.
Newark to Allentown was an hour and ten minutes at top speed under heavy rain.
Kowalski’s team was already halfway there.
Miller’s federal team wouldn't stage until five, completely unaware that the target had already launched a secondary strike against the primary witness.
I couldn't call Miller; federal radios and encrypted lines would take fifteen minutes to route through dispatch, and hospital security wouldn't believe a retired veteran calling from an unregistered burner phone.
I had to eliminate Victor Sterling, secure his communications link, and force his operations room to recall that strike team before they reached the fourth-floor corridor of Saint Jude’s.
I looked up at the steel catwalk leading to the second-floor office.
Two armed guards with tactical vests were leaning against the railing at the landing, checking their phones.
I holstered the Kimber, pulled the black combat knife from my boot, and began climbing the steel service ladder behind the hydraulic lift.
The mission was no longer about retribution.
May you like
It was an interception.
And I was going to cut through Victor Sterling’s perimeter until there was no one left to give the order.
