Chapter 14 - The Trap on the Ridge
The tranquility of the coastal sanctuary was shattered at twilight by the sharp chirp of Investigator Vance’s tactical radio.
Vance stepped out onto the porch, his face lined with sudden, severe tension.
“We have a critical breach at central transport,” Vance announced, his hand resting on the grip of his service pistol.
Ryan immediately stood up from the porch bench, his instincts snapping back into combat readiness.
“What happened?” Ryan demanded.
“Collins escaped during his transfer to the state diagnostic psychiatric ward,” Vance said, his voice grim.
“A tactical van belonging to the third precinct intercepted the ambulance on the northern bypass.”
“Two state troopers were shot.”
“The driver was executed at the scene.”
Emily stood up beside her mother, her fingers instinctively curling around Elena’s hand.
“He’s coming here,” Emily said, her voice shaking with sudden dread.
“He doesn't know the location of this safehouse,” Vance insisted, shaking his head.
“This property is registered under a blind agricultural trust established by the governor’s office.”
“He knows,” Samuel’s handwriting suddenly appeared on the pad in front of them.
The old patriarch had been watching Vance’s mouth and the movement of the troopers around the perimeter.
He had already deduced the situation.
He turned the page to reveal his stark assessment:
COLLINS RETRIEVED THE OLD RELOCATION MANIFESTS FROM THE PRECINCT ARCHIVES BEFORE HE WAS ARRESTED.
HE DOES NOT NEED A GPS COORDINATE.
HE REMEMBERS THE COVE WHERE THE SMUGGLING BOATS LOADED TIMBER IN NINETEEN-NINETY-EIGHT.
HE WILL COME BY WATER, NOT BY ROAD.
Ryan looked toward the salt marsh below the cottage, where the tide was rising rapidly, filling the narrow creeks with black, swirling seawater.
The darkness was settling fast over the pines, the last crimson light of sunset fading into a deep, starless twilight.
“He’s right,” Ryan muttered, looking at the water.
“If Collins uses the road, the state checkpoints would bottle him up within five miles.”
“He has an old harbor interceptor boat stored in the commercial marina three miles north of here.”
“He’s going to strike from the marsh.”
Vance turned to his four remaining state troopers.
“Move the family to the inner root cellar.”
“Form a defensive perimeter around the rear treeline.”
“No,” Ryan countered, stepping directly into Vance’s path.
“If we trap ourselves inside that cellar, Collins will throw incendiary grenades through the ground vents.”
“That is how he operated in the nineties—he burns structures to force targets into the open.”
Ryan looked at Samuel.
The old man gave a sharp nod of approval.
Samuel took his notebook and wrote three rapid instructions:
THE TIDE CRESTS IN TWENTY MINUTES.
THE SHALLOWS CANNOT SUPPORT A DEEP-DRAFT HULL.
HE WILL HAVE TO ANCHOR TWO HUNDRED YARDS OUT AND ADVANCE ON FOOT THROUGH THE REEDS.
WE AMBUSH THEM AT THE MUD FLATS.
Ryan looked at Vance.
“Do you have long-range tactical rifles in your suburban?”
“Two suppressed semi-automatic sniper platforms,” Vance replied, nodding firmly.
“Get them,” Ryan commanded.
Emily stepped forward, her eyes wide as she grabbed Ryan’s sleeve.
“Ryan, you cannot go down there into the dark!”
“He wants to kill you more than anyone else!”
Ryan turned and placed his hands gently on her shoulders, looking down into her brown eyes with fierce determination.
“Emily, twenty-four years ago, your mother carried me through the mud to save my life.”
“Tonight, I am carrying this family into the light.”
“Nobody else dies for the sins of Mark Collins.”
He squeezed her shoulders once, turned on his heel, and followed Vance toward the perimeter tree line.
Samuel did not remain on the porch.
He took an old heavy double-barreled hunting shotgun from the cottage hall rack—a weapon Elena had kept behind the door for two decades.
The old man broke the barrels, loaded two heavy twelve-gauge brass slugs into the chambers, and snapped the action shut with a crisp click.
He walked steadily down the porch steps, following his grandson into the shadows of the pine trees.
Elena and Emily stood on the porch, their hearts pounding in unison as the wind began to howl through the marsh reeds.
Down by the water’s edge, the dark shape of a high-speed fiberglass boat cut through the marsh channel, its running lights completely extinguished.
The engine died two hundred yards out, drifting quietly into the thick salt grass.
Four figures slid over the gunwales into the waist-deep water, their rifles held high above the brackish tide.
In the lead, his right arm bound tightly to his torso with tactical tape, was Mark Collins.
His eyes burned with the manic, unhinged fury of a man who knew he had reached the end of his existence and had only vengeance left to burn.
“Clear the shoreline,” Collins rasped to his three remaining loyalists.
“Kill the troopers.”
“Bring me the girl and the boy.”
Before the first mercenary could take three steps through the sucking mud, a brilliant green flare erupted into the night sky from the high bluff.
The entire marsh was suddenly illuminated in a harsh, supernatural emerald glare.
A suppressed rifle shot cracked from the pine trees.
The mercenary to Collins’s left collapsed into the water with a sharp groan, his rifle sinking beneath the dark surface.
“Ambush!” the second mercenary screamed, raising his weapon toward the tree line.
A second rifle round tore through the man’s shoulder, spinning him around into the mud flats.
Collins did not retreat.
He drew a heavy nine-millimeter pistol with his left hand, wading furiously through the shallow water toward the wooden dock.
“Liam!” Collins screamed, his voice cracking like dry wood.
“Come out and face your father!”
From the shadows of the cypress trees at the foot of the dock, Samuel DeMarco stepped into the emerald light of the descending flare.
He stood motionless, his heavy shotgun leveled directly at Collins’s chest.
Collins stopped in the mud, thirty feet away, the water lapping at his waist.
He looked at the deaf patriarch standing between him and the house.
“You old bastard,” Collins snarled, raising his pistol.
“You should have died in that holding cell!”
Before Collins could align his sights, Ryan stepped out from behind a massive pine trunk to the left, his tactical rifle aimed with surgical precision at Collins’s weapon hand.
“Drop the gun, Collins,” Ryan ordered, his voice cutting through the wind like a steel wire.
Collins looked at Ryan, then at Samuel.
He knew he was outmaneuvered, outgunned, and surrounded by state investigators closing in from the ridge.
A horrific, bitter laugh ripped from Collins’s throat.
“You think you can judge me, boy?” Collins screamed.
“You were born from my flesh!”
Collins jerked his pistol toward Samuel’s chest.
Two shots shattered the night at the exact same instant.
Ryan’s rifle round struck Collins’s left wrist, obliterating the pistol from his fingers.
At the same fraction of a second, Samuel pulled the front trigger of the old hunting shotgun.
The heavy brass slug struck Collins squarely in the chest, the kinetic force lifting the corrupt detective off his feet and throwing him backward into the deep water of the inlet channel.
The water churned furiously for several seconds as the emerald flare sputtered out in the high wind.
Then, absolute silence descended over the salt marsh.
May you like
Only the sound of the incoming tide lapping against the cypress roots remained.
Mark Collins was gone, swallowed by the very dark waters he had used to terrorize the city for a quarter of a century.
