Chapter 4 - The Ambush at the Docks
An hour later, the tactical team assembled in the war room of the security complex.
Map grids of the New York waterfront were projected across four massive wall monitors. Red tracking dots highlighted an abandoned shipping warehouse near Dock 42 in Brooklyn—the location where Dominic’s tech team had traced the secondary signal from the burner phone that sent the text message to me.
I sat in the corner armchair, feeding Emma a bottle, watching my husband command his six-man team with terrifying, surgical efficiency.
“Vance isn't at the warehouse,” James explained, pointing a laser pointer at the dock layout. “He’s too smart to stay in one place. He’s using that location as a relay station to route his encrypted communications. He wants us to rush in blind.”
“So what’s the play, Captain?” asked Miller, a tall sniper with a scar running across his eyebrow.
“We don't rush the warehouse,” James said, a dark, calculating smile touching his lips. “We feed him what he wants. We send a reply from Maya’s phone agreeing to meet his courier at the dock to exchange the stolen ledger files for Emma’s safety.”
“You’re going alone?” I spoke up, my voice trembling as I looked up from Emma’s bottle.
James turned to me, his demeanor softening instantly. He walked over, knelt beside my chair, and gently rested his hand over mine.
“I’m taking Miller and Dominic,” James assured me softly. “We’re setting the trap, Maya. Vance thinks I’m a desperate father willing to compromise. He doesn't realize I’ve been tracking his offshore accounts for three months.”
“James... promise me you’ll come back,” I begged, my fingers tightening around his tactical vest. “Emma needs her father. I need my husband.”
James leaned up and pressed his lips firmly against mine, a lingering, fiercely sweet kiss that made my soul ache.
“I’ll always come back to you,” he whispered against my lips.
Twenty minutes later, three black unmarked SUVs sped out of the subterranean garage, disappearing into the dark, snow-stormed streets toward Brooklyn.
The weather had worsened dramatically. Heavy sea fog rolled off the East River, thick and gray, swallowing the rusted cranes and decayed shipping containers of Dock 42.
James and his team moved through the shadows like phantoms, their suppressed rifles raised, night-vision goggles lowered over their eyes.
Dominic took the high ground on top of a stack of rusted steel containers, sweeping the area with his thermal scope. “Captain, I have three targets inside the main office frame. Heavy armaments. No sign of Vance himself.”
“Hold your fire,” James ordered into his throat mic as he slid behind a stack of wooden pallets fifteen feet from the warehouse entrance. “Wait for the courier.”
A black sedan glided into the gravel yard, its headlights cutting through the thick fog. A man in a heavy fur-lined coat stepped out, holding a silver briefcase in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other.
It was Richard Vance’s right-hand enforcer—a notorious mercenary known as “The Jackal.”
The enforcer stood in the center of the yard, checking his glowing watch. “Walker!” he called out into the fog, his voice carrying a thick Eastern European accent. “I know you’re out there! Drop the ledger, or the next message your wife receives will be a livestream of your house burning!”
In the shadows, James’s eyes burned with lethal intent. He tapped his earpiece twice.
“Take them,” James commanded.
A chorus of muffled THWIP-THWIP sounds echoed through the foggy air as Miller and Dominic fired simultaneously from their elevated positions.
The three men inside the office frame collapsed instantly.
The enforcer in the yard gasped as his gun was shot out of his hand by a precise sniper round from Miller. Before he could reach for his belt, James materialized out of the fog like an vengeance demon, driving his tactical boot straight into the man’s chest, slamming him violently onto the icy asphalt.
James planted his heavy boot on the enforcer’s throat, pressing down just hard enough to restrict his airway.
“Where is Vance?” James demanded, racking the slide of his sidearm.
The enforcer choked, red blood trickling from his lips, but he let out a dark, raspy laugh. “You... you think you’re so smart, Captain...”
James pressed his boot down harder. “Where is he?”
“He’s not in Brooklyn...” the enforcer wheezed, his eyes bulging with sick satisfaction. “He used the dock meeting as a distraction... while your father-in-law opened the back gate of your estate...”
James’s heart plummeted into a cold, terrifying abyss.
May you like
My father.
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