Chapter 6 - The Trap Springs
The tactical flashlight beam swept across the steel scaffolding just five feet away from where Daniel crouched in the dark.
He held his breath, pressing his hand gently over Maya’s mouth to muffle any accidental sound, though the little girl was too exhausted and terrified to make a peep. Her large amber eyes stared up at him in the dark, reflecting the pale glow of the light beam dancing across the rusted beams.
"Nothing up on the west catwalk," Marcus’s voice echoed from thirty feet down the gantry.
Julian Vance stepped into view directly beneath the crane platform, his expensive wool coat immaculate despite the grimy surroundings, a suppressed pistol held loosely in his right hand. He looked around the upper infrastructure with an expression of pure, clinical disgust.
"He's a ghost," Julian muttered to himself, his voice carrying clearly up to the rafters. "Just another rotting vagrant living in the filth of this city. When I find him, I'm going to put a bullet in his head and drop both of them into the harbor."
Daniel felt a cold surge of fury rush through his veins. But he didn't move. He waited, watching every twitch of the billionaire's posture, calculating distances, angles, and escape vectors with the cold precision of his old paramedic training.
Suddenly, Julian’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
Julian pulled it out, glancing at the glowing screen. "Yeah? ... What do you mean the federal auditors are looking at the trust accounts? ... No, do not touch the wire transfers until I get back—!"
Distracted by the urgent corporate call, Julian turned away from the crane ladder, pacing a few feet down the metal walkway as he argued quietly into his phone.
"Now," Daniel thought.
Quietly as a shadow, Daniel slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out Julian Vance’s leather wallet—the very item Julian needed back to erase his trail. He didn't need to fight them. He needed to draw them out into the open where the world could see them.
Taking a heavy bolt he had unscrewed from the crane housing earlier, Daniel wrapped it inside Julian’s expensive leather wallet, adding weight to it, and hurled it across the cavernous room toward the opposite corner of the building.
Clang.
The wallet hit a stack of empty metal oil drums with a sharp, echoing ring that reverberated off the tin roof.
"Over there!" Marcus shouted, spinning around and flashing his light toward the far corner.
"Check it!" Julian barked into his phone, snapping the device shut and raising his pistol. "If that’s him with my wallet, shoot to kill!"
As Marcus sprinted down the catwalk toward the noise, Julian moved out from beneath the overhang, positioning himself directly below the central service ladder of the crane gantry to cover his associate's flank.
It was the opening Daniel had waited for.
Clutching Maya tightly to his chest, Daniel swung his legs over the edge of the crane platform, dropped silently down onto the lower support beam, and scrambled down the maintenance ladder with lightning speed.
He hit the concrete floor with a muffled thud just twenty feet behind Julian Vance.
Before the billionaire could turn around, Daniel lunged forward, using every ounce of his remaining strength to slam his shoulder directly into Julian’s back.
Ugh!
Julian stumbled forward, sprawling hard across the concrete floor, his pistol skittering across the smooth surface and sliding into the darkness beneath an old trolley car.
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"Hey!" Marcus roared from across the building, turning around and spotting Daniel as he scooped Maya back up into his arms.
"Run, Maya! Run!" Daniel yelled, breaking into a dead sprint toward the massive rolling iron doors at the front of the transit barn—doors that were currently cracked open just enough to let the morning sunlight flood into the dark interior.
