Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE OF NORTHBROOK
The alley behind the warehouse erupted into a warzone before we even cleared the sub-basement stairs.
Heavy caliber gunfire chewed through the brickwork above our heads, sending clouds of red dust and shattered glass raining down into the alley. Crosby Vane hadn't come to secure the sample; he had come to slaughter everyone inside the building and burn the evidence to the ground.
"COVER THE REAR!" Vance roared, kneeling behind a steel dump truck and firing controlled bursts at two black SUVs blocking the alley entrance.
I shoved Clara into the back seat of my armored Suburban, sliding the cryo-container into a shock-absorbing mount between the front seats.
"Stay down!" I ordered her, slamming the reinforced door shut.
I leaped into the driver’s seat, slapping the ignition button. The twin-turbo V8 engine roared to life with a deep, predatory growl.
"Prescott! Vance! Get in!" I yelled through the comms.
They scrambled into the vehicle just as a heavy armor-piercing round shattered the outer layer of the driver-side bulletproof glass, spider-webbing the heavy acrylic but failing to penetrate.
I threw the Suburban into reverse, slamming the rear bumper into a sedan trying to block us from behind. The steel frame crumpled under three tons of armored Mercedes steel. I spun the wheel, dropping the transmission into drive, and floored the accelerator.
We burst through the wooden alley fence like a battering ram, launching onto 14th Street into the blinding sleet.
"Where are we going?" Clara shouted from the back, her fingers clutching the seat frame as the vehicle fish-tailed across the icy pavement. "The hospital is south! We need to get the sample to Dr. Yates!"
"We can't go to the hospital," I said, eyeing the rearview mirror. Three set of high-intensity LED headlights were swerving onto the street behind us, closing the distance rapidly. "Dr. Yates doesn't have the specialized centrifuge equipment needed to process a six-year-old cryo-sample. That equipment is only in one place in this city."
Clara’s face went pale. "My father's private medical lab. In Northbrook."
"Crosby built that lab for himself when he was diagnosed with bone cancer three years ago," I said, accelerating through a red light at sixty miles per hour. "It’s the only facility in the state with a closed-loop cellular separator capable of preparing those cells in under thirty minutes. If we take the sample to a municipal hospital, the thawing process alone will destroy fifty percent of the cell viability. Jonah and Blythe won't survive."
"Lawson, Northbrook is a fortress!" Prescott warned from the passenger seat, reloading his magazine. "Crosby has twenty men stationed on that estate! It's a suicide run!"
"Then it's a good night to die," I said, my jaw set like iron. "Because my children are breathing by morning, or none of us are."
I tapped the central console screen, opening a direct, unencrypted radio channel to the private frequency Crosby Vane had used to threaten my family for fifteen years.
I pressed the transmit button.
"Crosby," I said. My voice was calm, steady, echoing through the speaker system of whatever luxury vehicle the old monster was riding in behind us.
A beat of static filled the air. Then came Crosby Vane's raspy, tobacco-stained laugh.
"Lawson," Crosby’s voice sneered through the speaker. "I see my ungrateful little bastard of a daughter found you. Did she tell you how Genevieve cried when she signed those papers? Did she tell you how your wife begged me not to ruin you?"
I didn't let the poison touch me. My hands remained steady on the wheel.
"I have the sample, Crosby," I said. "And I'm coming to your house."
A moment of silence fell over the radio line. Crosby hadn't expected that. He had expected me to run to my mansion, to hide behind my guards while my lawyers filed useless motions.
"You're coming here?" Crosby sneered, though a faint edge of doubt crept into his tone. "I have thirty men waiting on the lawn, Lawson. You step onto my driveway and you'll be dead before you hit the front steps."
"Have them ready," I replied softly. "Because I'm not bringing lawyers. I'm bringing everything your family built this empire on—and I'm taking your lab."
I cut the transmission.
I looked back in the mirror at Clara. She was looking at me, not with fear, but with a fierce, terrifying resolve.
"Can you operate the separator in that lab?" I asked her.
May you like
Clara nodded slowly, wiping the blood from her lip. "I spent two years working in that lab under Crosby's chief scientist. I know every valve, every code, every setting. Give me fifteen minutes in that room, Lawson, and I’ll have those cells ready for infusion."
"Then you get fifteen minutes," I said, pulling the paddle-shifters as we slammed onto the northbound interstate toward Northbrook. "Even if I have to burn the rest of the world to give them to you."
