Chapter 12 - The Wolves in the Corridors
The convoy rolled out of the Lake Forest gates at precisely seven o'clock on a frigid Tuesday morning.
The city of Chicago was paralyzed under an inversion layer of thick, yellow-gray smog and freezing fog that reduced visibility along the Edens Expressway to fifty yards.
We traveled in three identical black Chevrolet Suburbans, with darkened windows and reinforced Level 6 ballistic armor plates lining the chassis.
Marcus drove the lead vehicle.
I sat in the passenger seat of the secondary Suburban, with Clara Hughes seated behind me in the center of the cabin.
Norah was not with us.
At four in the morning, under the cover of a routine milk delivery truck, Mrs. Gable and two of my most trusted retired veterans had moved Norah to a secure, private lakeside cottage in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Norah had kissed her mother’s cheek through the cold predawn darkness, handed her Barnaby the rabbit, and said, “Give Barnaby back to me when the bad men go to sleep, Mama.”
Clara had held the rabbit against her ribs the entire drive down the highway.
Her knuckles were white around the worn plush fabric, but her eyes were fixed straight ahead, staring through the front windshield at the approaching towers of the Chicago Loop.
“Federal marshals will meet us at the underground bay beneath the Dirksen Building,” I said, checking my watch.
“Agent Miller has four teams clearing the parking ramp.”
“And Vance’s people?” Clara asked.
“Vance doesn't have an organization left in Chicago,” I replied.
“Whatever happens today is coming from his financial sponsors in New York.”
“The Apex Syndicate doesn't use street thugs; they use private security contractors who carry government security clearances and clean diplomatic passports.”
“Men who shoot to eliminate, not to intimidate,” Clara noted.
“Precisely.”
The convoy took the Congress Parkway exit, diving beneath the concrete underpasses of downtown.
The skyscrapers loomed above us like giant tombstones shrouded in winter fog.
Pedestrians hurried along the sidewalks with their heads bowed against the wind, clutching umbrellas and briefcases, completely oblivious to the war rolling past their feet.
As the lead Suburban turned onto Dearborn Street, my tactical earpiece hissed with static.
“Vale, this is Miller,” the FBI agent’s voice crackled through the channel, breathy and strained.
“David, we are two blocks out from the Dirksen subterranean entrance,” I said.
“Abort the approach, Gideon! Turn the convoy around now!” Miller shouted over the radio.
The screech of tires and the rapid pop of automatic fire echoed through Miller’s open microphone.
“What’s happening, Miller?”
“The ramp is compromised! It wasn't Vance’s men—it’s a rogue federal detail carrying forged Department of Justice transfer orders!”
“They’ve barricaded the lower gates and deployed tear gas in the security concourse!”
“They want Clara out in the open street!”
Before Miller could finish his transmission, the intersection ahead of us exploded in chaos.
A city utility flatbed truck, loaded with concrete barrier slabs, blew through a red light from Adams Street at fifty miles an hour.
It rammed the front right quarter-panel of our lead Suburban with sickening momentum.
The impact spun the three-ton armored SUV across the frozen intersection, smashing it violently into a granite bank pillar.
Glass showered the sidewalk like diamonds.
“Brace!” Thomas screamed from the driver’s seat of our vehicle.
He slammed the steering wheel to the left, pulling the emergency brake.
Our Suburban went into a controlled skid across the icy asphalt, tires howling as the chassis spun one hundred and eighty degrees.
We came to a shuddering halt fifty feet from the wrecked lead truck, pinned against the curb.
Through the swirling fog, three black Dodge sedans pulled up, cutting off our retreat down Dearborn.
A dozen men in black tactical jackets, wearing ballistic goggles and carrying short-barreled automatic rifles, poured out of the vehicles.
They moved with textbook military aggression, fanning out into an overlapping kill zone centered on our Suburban.
“Thomas, reverse!” I barked, drawing my Kimber .45 and racking the slide.
“The transmission is jammed, Mister Vale! The rear axle is caught on the curb!” Thomas yelled, struggling with the gear shift.
Automatic fire erupted instantly, hammering the reinforced glass of our vehicle with the deafening sound of a thousand iron hammers.
The bullet-resistant glass spiderwebbed instantly into white, opaque patterns, but held firm against the high-velocity rounds.
“Clara, get on the floor!” I commanded, unbuckling my seatbelt.
Clara dropped into the footwell behind the front seats, curling her body over the stuffed rabbit, her teeth clenched in silent fury.
Through the cracked driver’s side window of the lead vehicle, I saw Marcus kick open his dented door.
Blood streamed down his forehead from the collision, but he was already returning fire with his tactical carbine, keeping two of the contractors pinned behind the utility truck.
“They aren't trying to capture her, Gideon,” Clara called out from the floor, her voice surprisingly steady amidst the deafening roar of gunshots.
“They know if I don't sign the deposition affidavits by nine o'clock, the federal court dismisses the charges against Julian Vance automatically!”
I glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard: 8:42 AM.
We were eighty yards from the front glass doors of the Dirksen Federal Building.
Between us and the courthouse entrance lay forty yards of open, snow-covered plaza, two flights of granite steps, and eight heavily armed professional killers.
“Marcus!” I yelled into my radio over the gunfire.
“Still breathing, boss!” Marcus coughed back.
“Smoke and suppress! We are moving on foot to the north plaza entrance!”
“Sir, that plaza has zero cover!”
“Then we make our own cover,” I said coldly.
I turned to the trunk release switch on the dashboard and popped the rear hatch.
Inside the tactical storage crate beneath the floorboards lay two military-grade thermal smoke canisters.
I leaned over the backseat, grabbed the canisters, and pulled the pins with my teeth.
I kicked open the passenger door and hurled both canisters into the center of the windy intersection.
Thick, impenetrable plumes of hot white chemical smoke bloomed outward in an instant, swallowing the street, the sedans, and the contractors in a blinding, thermal-resistant cloud.
“Move!” I shouted, grabbing Clara by the collar of her cardigan and hauling her out of the vehicle.
Thomas stepped out on our left, his submachine gun roaring in three-round bursts into the smoke, driving back any operative attempting to charge the blind perimeter.
We broke into a dead sprint across the frozen granite of the federal plaza.
The wind off Lake Michigan whipped the smoke into wild, spiraling vortexes.
Bullets whined off the concrete pavers around our feet, chipping marble and showering our coats with icy gravel.
Clara stumbled on the icy steps, her injured hip giving out.
I caught her around the waist without breaking stride, lifting her up the remaining stairs toward the massive revolving doors of the Dirksen Building.
Suddenly, a figure materialized through the white haze at the top of the terrace.
A tall, broad-shouldered operative wearing a tactical balaclava leveled a suppressed rifle directly at Clara’s chest.
There was no time to raise my weapon.
I threw my own body across Clara’s frame, twisting my torso to shield her vital organs with my heavy wool coat and ballistic vest.
The rifle spat three rounds.
The concussive force slammed into my left shoulder and upper back like three direct hits from a sledgehammer.
The ceramic armor plate behind my shoulder blade absorbed the direct impact, but the sheer kinetic energy fractured my left clavicle with an audible, sickening snap.
Pain exploded through my neck and chest, white-hot and blinding, stealing every drop of oxygen from my lungs.
I stumbled backward against the brass frame of the revolving door, gasping for breath, my vision swimming in crimson spots.
The contractor took a step forward to deliver the execution shot to my head.
Before his finger could tighten on the trigger, a deafening blast tore through the plaza.
Special Agent David Miller, stepping out from the interior lobby with a standard-issue Remington 12-gauge shotgun, fired through the revolving glass pane.
The heavy blast caught the contractor in the chest, lifting him off his feet and throwing him down the granite steps into the snow.
Miller kicked the revolving door clear, grabbed me by my good arm, and dragged both Clara and me into the heated warmth of the federal lobby.
“Federal Marshals! Lock down the rotunda!” Miller roared to the tactical agents swarming the security stations.
The heavy emergency ballistic shutters slammed down over the glass facades of the building, sealing out the wind, the gunfire, and the winter cold with a series of thunderous, echoing clangs.
I collapsed onto one knee on the polished marble floor, clutching my ruined shoulder, sweat pouring down my gray face.
Clara was beside me instantly, her knees dropping into the melting slush we had dragged inside.
Her hands were covered in my blood where the bullet fragments had grazed my neck.
“Gideon! Gideon, look at me!” she cried, her voice trembling with sheer panic.
I lifted my head, forcing my lungs to draw in a ragged, agonizing breath of warm air.
I looked at the digital clock mounted above the security metal detectors.
8:54 AM.
I reached out with my right hand, catching Clara’s wrist in a grip that was still made of iron.
“Get upstairs, Clara,” I gasped out, the pain threatening to drag me into unconsciousness.
“I am not leaving you on this floor!” she shouted, tears spilling over her eyelashes.
“You didn't run through a blizzard to cry over me on a courthouse floor,” I told her, my voice turning into a raw, commanding rasp.
“Go up to Courtroom 2104.”
“Sign the papers.”
“Put Julian Vance in a cage.”
Clara looked from my bleeding shoulder to the elevator bank where two armed federal marshals were holding the doors open.
She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, leaving a streak of my blood across her cheek.
She held Barnaby the rabbit tightly against her chest, stood up to her full height, and turned toward the elevators.
May you like
“Agent Miller,” she said, her voice clear, hard, and unbroken.
“Take me to the judge.”
