Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the Yard
The industrial railyard was a graveyard of rusted boxcars, towering floodlight pylons, and overgrown weeds. At 0200 hours, a heavy mist rolled in from the nearby river, cloaking the maze of iron tracks in a ghostly veil. Four heavily armed mercenaries hired by Mark Vance patrolled the central switching tower, thermal scopes mounted on their assault carbines, sweeping the perimeter with practiced discipline.
Inside the repair barn, David strapped on a lightweight tactical harness, loading high-capacity magazines into the pouches. He picked up an suppressed M4 carbine, checking the chamber with a crisp, fluid snap.
""Eli, you stay with Lily in the reinforced bunker beneath the grease pit,"" David instructed, kneeling before his daughter one more time. He took off his dog tags, the cool steel chiming softly, and placed the chain gently over her head. ""Lily, listen to me. This has Daddy's name on it. If you ever feel scared, you hold this tight, and you remember that nothing can stop me from coming back to you. Understand?""
Lily clutched the cold metal plates against her pink sweater, tears welling in her eyes, but she did not cry out. She nodded bravely. ""I love you, Daddy.""
""I love you more than life, sweetheart."" David kissed her forehead, turned, and disappeared into the nocturnal mist like an apparition.
At the switching yard, two guards stood beneath the overhang of a decrepit warehouse, sharing a cigarette.
""Crazy bastard was special forces,"" one mercenary muttered, flicking ashes into the puddle below. ""He survived two tours in the Korengal. You think fifty grand is enough to stand between him and his kid?""
""He's one man,"" the other scoffed, adjusting his body armor. ""Briggs has eyes on every intersection. He’s probably hiding in a ditch miles from here—""
A shadow dropped from the roof of the boxcar above them.
Before the first guard could raise his weapon, David’s combat boot struck him squarely in the neck, crushing the vertebrae and dropping him instantly into the muddy ballast. The second guard whipped his rifle around, but David seized the hot barrel, forcing it upward as a muffled burst tore into the metal ceiling. David drove a combat knife cleanly through the joint of the man’s shoulder armor, twisting hard. The mercenary let out a stifled shriek, collapsing to his knees as David wrenched the weapon away and struck him across the temple with the heavy buttstock.
In less than six seconds, the two outer sentries had been neutralized without an alarm being raised.
David searched the fallen guards, pulling two encrypted radio sets from their tactical vests. He clipped one to his ear just as the speaker crackled to life with Detective Briggs’s voice:
“Command to Yard Unit. Vance just arrived at the central terminal with the custody paperwork. He wants confirmation that the girl hasn't been spotted. We’re moving the secondary transport vehicle now.”
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David keyed the mic, speaking in a measured, icy whisper that chilled the channel:
""Yard Unit is decommissioned, Briggs. Tell Vance to keep his hands on that paperwork. It's the only thing that's going to wipe the blood off his face when I find him.""
