Chapter 8 - The Ambush at the Docks
""They bypassed the road monitors,"" Thomas whispered, his face pale in the sweeping searchlights. ""They tracked my car.""
""They didn't track your car, Thomas,"" Elena said grimly, looking down at the aluminum case he had brought. She reached beneath the foam insert, pulling free a tiny, blinking magnetic transponder no larger than a coin. ""Evelyn planted this on your trunk before you left the manor.""
Ethan’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure steel. The fragility he had carried for months vanished completely. ""How many men outside?""
Elena crept to the loading dock door, peering through a slit in the metal siding. ""Four tactical vehicles. At least ten men armed with submachine guns. Evelyn isn't arresting us, Ethan. This is an execution squad.""
""There's an emergency fuel line that feeds the old drydock behind that wall,"" Thomas pointed with a trembling finger toward a red valve wheel near the rear exit. ""If we flood the lower runoff trench, it opens straight into the tidal canal.""
""Ethan, can you walk to the back door?"" Elena asked, strapping the ledger securely to her chest beneath her jacket.
""I can walk,"" Ethan said, his voice flat, resolute. He picked up a heavy iron wrench from the workbench, testing the balance in his hand. His legs were unsteady, firing erratic bursts of pain, but they obeyed him.
A flash-bang grenade shattered the upper glass window, detonating with an ear-splitting bang and blinding white light.
Elena pulled Ethan behind an overturned steel welding table as automatic gunfire shredded the wooden siding of the barn. Plaster, splinters, and glass rained down in a continuous hail of destruction.
""Move! Now!"" Elena yelled.
Thomas scrambled to the red valve, hauling on the rusted wheel with all his remaining strength. A heavy, gurgling roar echoed beneath the floorboards as hundred of gallons of dormant diesel fuel rushed into the low drainage ditch running along the perimeter of the shop.
Two masked mercenaries kicked the side entrance open, their tactical rifles sweeping the smoke-filled interior.
Ethan didn't wait. Stepping out from the shadows of the welding rig, he swung the heavy iron wrench with devastating leverage, shattering the first guard’s rifle barrel into his jaw. The guard collapsed like a marionette with severed strings. The second operative spun toward Ethan, raising his weapon, but Elena slammed a heavy industrial fire extinguisher into his side, pinning him against the wall.
Ethan ripped a flare from the wall emergency rack, struck the cap against the floor, and hurled the hissing red torch directly into the diesel runoff trench behind the remaining tactical squad.
A wall of roaring orange flame surged twenty feet into the air, completely cutting off the mercenaries' advance and setting off the building's emergency halon fire-suppression sirens.
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""The canal! Go!"" Ethan shouted, wrapping his arm around Elena as they shoved through the rear emergency exit into the freezing saltwater spray of the docks.
Behind them, Evelyn’s voice screamed over the comms system above the roar of the fire: ""Do not let them reach the water! Kill them both!""
