Chapter 6 - The Red Crosshairs
"Get down!" Frank roared, throwing his massive frame across Elena and the two children.
A high-velocity round punched through the double-pane glass with a sharp crack, shattering the pane and sending jagged shards raining over the concrete floor. The slug embedded itself deeply into an engine block behind them with a vicious metallic thud.
Frank dragged them behind an upturned wooden skiff lying on sawbucks. "Thermal optics," he spat, his hand immediately dipping into the waistband of his trousers to pull out an old, heavily scarred revolver. "They aren't using regular private muscle anymore. Those are mercenaries. Private military contractors."
"How did they find us so fast?" Elena gasped, wrapping her arms around the terrified children as another round tore through the boat's plywood hull, inches above her head.
Leo reached into his worn sneaker and pulled out a small, circular metallic bead embedded into the thick rubber sole. It pulsed with an almost imperceptible blue micro-LED. "Sub-dermal locator in my heel," Leo said miserably, his voice cracking. "I forgot. She had them put in when we turned six."
"Give it to me," Frank demanded.
He snatched the tracker from the boy's hand, grabbed an empty glass oil jar from the workbench, dropped the device inside, and threw it with all his might out the shattered back window into the black, churning waters of the harbor basin.
"That'll buy us five minutes while their sweepers search the bay floor," Frank said, racking the cylinder of his revolver. "The front is covered by snipers. There's a converted fishing trawler docked at the end of the slip under the warehouse floor. It has a twin-turbo diesel. We take the channel out toward the international shipping lanes."
"Can we make it?" Elena asked, feeling Mia’s rapid, shallow breathing against her chest.
"Not if we walk out the back door like sitting ducks," Frank said grimly. He reached over to a wall-mounted panel and yanked a heavy emergency lever. "Close your eyes."
The warehouse’s industrial Halon fire suppression system detonated with an ear-splitting hiss. Dense white gas flooded the vast room, dropping the temperature and obliterating all infrared and thermal sightlines. Frank grabbed a tactical flashlight, caught Leo by the hand, and propelled them toward a floor hatch beneath a grease rack.
Gunfire chewed through the metal walls in blind, frantic bursts from outside. The mercenaries knew their thermal imaging was blinded. Heavy bootsteps slammed against the warehouse sheet-metal siding as the assault team prepared to breach the main doors.
Elena threw the floor hatch open. A wooden ramp led directly down to a hidden water slip beneath the pier where a rugged, black-painted steel trawler rocked in the dark tidal swell. Frank leaped onto the deck, tossing the kids down safely before reaching up to pull Elena aboard.
Frank vaulted into the wheelhouse and mashed the ignition button. The twin diesels sputtered, caught, and roared to life with a deep, chest-rattling rumble.
"Cast off the stern line!" Frank yelled through the cabin window.
Elena jumped to the rear deck, untying the thick nylon mooring rope from the cleat. Just as she threw the line clear, the warehouse doors above blew outward in a concussive blast of fire and splinters.
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Three heavily armed men in black tactical combat gear emerged onto the slip, raising assault rifles. Elena threw herself flat onto the deck as bullets raked the trawler’s steel cabin, shattering the running lights.
Frank slammed the throttle forward. The trawler lunged out from under the rotting pier into the open blackness of the stormy harbor just as a searchlight from an approaching black helicopter swept across the churning water, locking directly onto their wake.
