Chapter 7 - Ambush at Sunrise
I crawled through the narrow concrete pipe on my hands and knees, the sound of sporadic rifle fire and exploding stun grenades echoing through the drainage system behind me. The icy rainwater soaked through my jeans and jacket, but the burning rage inside my chest kept my limbs moving with relentless, machine-like speed.
I reached the northern exit of the culvert where the pipe emptied into a dense pine thicket. The sky in the east was just beginning to bruise with the first pale streaks of dawn. In the distance, smoke was already curling into the morning sky—Frank's farmhouse was burning. But the gunfire had ceased, replaced by the wailing sirens of approaching county fire trucks that Frank had undoubtedly triggered through an automated panic sequence.
I sprinted through two miles of dense timberland until I hit the state highway near an old truck stop. At a payphone outside the diner, I dialed a number Frank had scribbled on the back of my hand with a permanent marker: Special Agent Marcus Vance—no relation to us, but a trusted former colleague of Frank’s from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's public corruption task force in Chicago.
Agent Vance answered on the second ring. I didn't waste time on pleasantries. ""My brother Frank sent me. I have the unedited bodycam footage of Sergeant Cole Ryder intentionally breaking my son's legs under the orders of Captain Marcus Grant and Victoria Vance. They just burned Frank's house down to destroy the server.""
There was a five-second silence on the line. When Agent Vance spoke, his tone had shifted entirely into tactical mode. ""Where are you right now, Mr. Vance?""
""Truck stop on Route 9, three miles east of the county line.""
""Do not move from that location,"" Agent Vance ordered. ""I have a tactical federal response team staging at the regional airfield twenty minutes from your position. Keep those drives secure against your body. We are bringing you in under federal protective custody.""
Twenty minutes felt like twenty years. I stood behind a row of rusted diesel fuel tanks, clutching the tactical pouch against my ribs, watching every passing car with white-knuckled paranoia.
Suddenly, a silver sedan sped into the truck stop parking lot. The driver was not the FBI.
It was Victoria.
She was alone. Her hair was disheveled, her expensive coat stained with soot around the cuffs, her face pale and haggard. She stepped out of the vehicle, clutching her handbag tightly, her eyes wildly scanning the gravel lot until she spotted me standing near the diesel pumps.
She ran toward me, her heels clicking frantically against the broken asphalt. ""Ethan! Thank God you're alive! You have to listen to me!""
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I stepped out from behind the tanks, my face completely expressionless, staring at the woman I had shared a bed with for over two decades. ""Don't take another step, Victoria.""
""Ethan, please, it's not what you think!"" she cried out, tears welling in her eyes—tears that looked so rehearsed, so sickeningly performative that I felt an urge to gag. ""Grant forced me into this! He threatened Mason! He told me if I didn't help him secure those riverfront parcels, he would frame Mason for narcotics distribution and send him to state prison for twenty years! I was only trying to protect our son!""
