Chapter 11 - The Catwalk Collapse
The gunshot cracked through the concrete cavern like a lightning strike.
The first operative dropped instantly to the floor, his rifle clattering across the slick concrete. Before the second man could acquire the source of the shot, Mark fired twice more into his chest. The man collapsed backward against the hood of the forklift, dead before he hit the ground.
"Catwalk! Catwalk!" Mercer roared, dropping his cane and drawing a nickel-plated automatic pistol from beneath his overcoat as he dove behind a steel support pillar.
The remaining two guards unleashed a blistering hail of automatic gunfire upward into the shadows. Sparks sprayed violently across the rusted steel grating as 9mm rounds shredded the metal inches from Mark’s face. Mark rolled laterally across the catwalk, firing down through the open gaps of the floorboards.
One of his shots clipped the third gunman in the shoulder, spinning him around, but a spray of rounds chewed through the catwalk’s rusted structural support brackets.
With a deafening screech of tearing metal, the catwalk sheared away from the wall.
Mark felt the world tilt beneath his boots. He leaped forward, grabbing the overhead meat-hook rail with both hands just as forty feet of industrial steel plummeted downward, crashing into the concrete floor directly onto the portable generator. The impact shattered the generator, plunging the entire warehouse into total, pitch-black darkness.
The gunfire ceased instantly.
The only sounds remaining were the hiss of leaking freon, the heavy panting of the surviving men, and Lily’s sudden, terrified scream from the steel cage: "Daddy! Daddy!"
"Lily, stay down!" Mark roared, dropping twenty feet down from the overhead rail, absorbing the impact into a combat roll behind a stack of rusted pallets.
"Kill the girl!" Mercer’s voice bellowed through the pitch black. "Shoot the cage!"
Mark didn't wait for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He drew his combat knife and sprinted through the darkness toward the sound of Mercer’s voice. Muzzle flashes illuminated the warehouse in violent, stroboscopic bursts as the remaining wounded guard fired blind toward the cage.
Mark closed the distance in four strides. He slammed into the guard from behind, driving the heel of his palm upward into the man’s chin, snapping his head back, while simultaneously driving his blade into the guard's tactical harness release. Mark stripped the man’s rifle away, spun him around as a human shield just as Mercer fired three rapid shots into the dark.
The bullets slammed into the guard's body armor, jolting him violently. Mark dropped the dead weight, raised the captured submachine gun, and fired a short, controlled burst toward the muzzle flash.
A high-pitched scream of agony tore from Mercer's throat.
Silence fell over the room once more, broken only by the sound of someone crawling painfully across the concrete.
Suddenly, high-beam headlights flared to life inside the warehouse. Evelyn had driven the Subaru straight through the shattered loading dock doors, illuminating the center of the room in stark, blinding white light.
Sarah stood beside the driver's side door, holding a tire iron, her eyes wide with shock.
In the center of the light, Julian Mercer lay on his side near the base of the hanging cage, clutching a shattered femur, his hand scrabbling desperately across the blood-slick floor for his fallen pistol.
Mark walked out of the shadows, soaked in harbor water and blood, the rifle hanging loosely at his side.
Mercer looked up, his face twisted in pain, spitting blood onto the concrete. "You think... you think this ends with me, Mark? The syndicate knows who you are. They know your name. They’ll never stop hunting your family."
Mark stopped two feet from Mercer. He didn't raise his rifle. He looked up at the cage, where Lily was peering through the steel bars, her tear-stained eyes wide as she saw him.
"Daddy," she whimpered softly.
Mark looked back down at Mercer. "They can come," Mark whispered. "I'll be waiting."
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He stepped past Mercer, ignoring the wounded man’s threats, and reached up toward the padlock securing the cage door. But before he could strike the lock with his rifle butt, the deep, mournful horn of an approaching cargo ship reverberated through the harbor basin.
And from the radio clipped to Mercer’s bloody chest, a voice crackled through the static: "Alpha team, this is Harbor Control. Coast Guard interceptors just breached the outer perimeter. Evacuate the dock immediately. They're raiding Berth 7."
