Chapter 3 - The Ambush on Michigan Avenue
By three in the morning, the blizzard had turned the Chicago skyline into a swirling vortex of white and gray.
The streets were empty except for city salt trucks and the occasional patrol cruiser crawling through the drifts.
I stood inside the mobile command van parked two blocks south of Northwestern Memorial.
On the monitors before me, four separate camera feeds displayed the hospital’s loading bay, the intensive care corridors, and the surrounding intersections.
Marcus was on the radio.
“Transport team is in position on the fourth floor,” Marcus reported through the earpiece. “Dr. Henderson is with them. They’ve transferred Clara Hughes to our portable life-support gurney.”
“Any sign of Croft’s people?” I asked, watching the monitor showing the service elevator.
“Two spotters in a sedan across the street from the emergency entrance. They think they’re invisible.”
“Let them watch the front. Use the underground basement tunnel connected to the parking pavilion.”
“Moving now, sir.”
On screen three, the heavy fire doors of the hospital basement swung open.
Henderson and two armed operatives disguised as private medical technicians wheeled Clara Hughes through the corridor.
Even on the grainy black-and-white feed, I could see the heavy bandages around her head.
A mechanical ventilator rose and fell rhythmically, keeping her lungs working.
Her face was bruised, but beneath the swelling, the resemblance to Norah was unmistakable.
The same jawline, the same delicate bone structure.
She had fought like a lioness to keep her daughter alive.
Suddenly, the camera feed in the rear parking ramp flickered and went dark.
Static hissed across the screen.
“Marcus, status,” I barked into the microphone.
“We have movement in the lower ramp!” Marcus’s voice was instantly drowned out by the muffled crack of a suppressed weapon.
Gunfire erupted in the concrete enclosure.
“Ambush!” Henderson yelled over the open channel. “They cut the power to the ramp gates!”
I didn't wait for another report.
I threw open the door of the surveillance van and stepped out into the freezing slush.
Two of my personal bodyguards, Alex and Frank, fell in behind me, their hands buried inside their heavy coats where submachine guns hung on tactical slings.
We sprinted across the snow-covered street toward the hospital’s subterranean parking structure.
The smell of burning rubber and cordite hit my nostrils the moment we cleared the ramp entrance.
Down on the lower level, a black SUV had rammed the front of our armored ambulance, pinning it against a concrete pillar.
Four men dressed in dark tactical gear were moving systematically toward the rear doors where Clara was secured.
One of them had a distinct serpentine tattoo climbing out of his collar, curling up behind his right ear.
Damian Croft.
He was holding a suppressed automatic pistol, barking orders to his men.
“Pull the plug on the woman and find the bag! The boss wants her flatlined before sunrise!”
Croft’s man reached for the latch of the ambulance.
I didn't waste time with warnings.
I drew my custom Kimber .45 from my inner holster and fired two rounds in rapid succession.
The heavy hollow-points caught the first operative squarely in the center of his chest.
He collapsed backward into the dirty snow without making a sound.
The concrete parking garage amplified the echoing roar of unsuppressed gunfire.
“Vale!” Croft screamed, recognizing me instantly as he dove behind a concrete column.
His remaining men swung their weapons toward us, unleashing a hail of automatic fire that chewed through the brickwork around our heads.
Alex and Frank returned fire with disciplined, overlapping bursts from their MPX carbines.
The sound was deafening, bouncing off the low concrete ceilings.
I moved forward with cold, mechanical precision.
I didn't feel the winter wind cutting through my clothes.
I didn't feel the danger.
All I saw was the man who had terrified a seven-year-old girl and pushed her mother down a flight of stairs.
Another of Croft’s gunners stepped out to line up a shot on Henderson.
I fired once through the windshield of a parked sedan; the bullet deflected slightly but punched through his neck.
The man crumpled, painting the snow crimson.
Croft realized within five seconds that he had walked into an execution ground.
He hadn't expected Gideon Vale to lead a rescue team in person.
He had assumed he was cleaning up an ordinary civilian hit.
Croft broke cover, sprinted toward a secondary staircase leading up to street level, and fired blind behind him.
One of his rounds struck the door frame inches from my cheek, spraying concrete dust into my eyes.
“Frank, secure the transport!” I ordered, blinking away the grit. “Marcus, get Clara into the secondary vehicle!”
I took off after Croft, boots pounding against the frozen stairs.
The stairwell smelled of rust and cold air.
I kicked open the heavy metal door at the top and emerged into the howling storm on Huron Street.
Croft was twenty yards ahead, limping slightly, his boots slipping on the black ice.
He turned, saw me closing the distance, and raised his weapon.
I fired first.
The round shattered his right shoulder, sending his pistol spinning across the icy pavement into the gutter.
Croft slammed against the brick wall of a boutique shop, gasping for air, clutching his ruined shoulder with his left hand.
Blood poured through his black tactical gloves.
I walked up to him slowly, lowering my weapon to my side.
The wind whipped my coat around my knees.
Croft looked up, his face twisted in pain, his eyes wide with a mixture of hatred and sheer disbelief.
“Vale...” he choked out, crimson frothing at the corner of his mouth. “You’re out of your mind... You don't know what she took...”
I stepped into his space, grabbing him by the throat with my bare left hand.
I slammed his head against the brickwork with enough force to crack the mortar.
“I know she took your dignity, Croft.”
“Councilman Vance... he won't let this go... She has the offshore logs... the port authority kickbacks... Julian will burn this city down before he lets that data reach the grand jury!”
“Julian Vance doesn't own this city,” I whispered directly into his ear. “I do.”
“The girl... where is the girl?” Croft hissed, a malicious sneer fighting through his agony. “My men will find her... she can’t hide forever...”
I pressed the warm barrel of my .45 against the center of the snake tattoo on his neck.
His sneer vanished instantly.
His breathing hitched, his pupils dilating to pinpricks.
“Norah is under my roof,” I told him.
Croft’s skin went completely gray.
“No... you wouldn't get involved in this... it’s not your war...”
“You made it my war when you left her to freeze on my daughter’s bench.”
Croft opened his mouth to plead, but the arrogance of his career had run out of currency.
“Tell Vance I am coming for his empire,” I said.
I struck him across the temple with the heavy steel frame of my weapon.
Croft’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed unconscious into the snowbank.
Marcus ran out of the stairwell, panting, his weapon drawn.
He looked at the bleeding hitman on the sidewalk, then at me.
“Do we terminate him, Mr. Vale?”
“No,” I said, wiping the concrete dust from my jacket. “Drag him to the basement vault at the River North facility. I want him alive until Clara Hughes opens her eyes.”
“And the mother?”
“She’s in the secondary armored van,” Marcus reported, catching his breath. “Dr. Henderson says she survived the skirmish. She’s already on her way to our private surgical bay.”
“Good.”
I looked down at Croft’s discarded weapon lying in the slush.
This was only the first wave.
Julian Vance had billions at his disposal, ties to the governor’s office, and a network of corrupt officials who would protect him to save their own skins.
They didn't just want Clara dead; they needed Norah silenced to bury the evidence forever.
I turned my back on the snow-covered street and walked toward my car.
The city thought I was retired from open warfare.
The cartels and the syndicates thought Gideon Vale had become soft behind his marble desks and corporate balance sheets.
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Tonight, they were going to learn that a wounded wolf never forgets how to hunt.
And before this winter was over, I would dismantle every hand that had reached for that little girl.
