Chapter 5 - The Rail Yard Ambush
The armored black Suburban tore through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago like a missile, running red lights through the industrial south corridor. I sat in the reinforced rear seat beside Desmond, whose motorized chair was locked into heavy steel floor clamps. On his lap rested a shortened 12-gauge tactical shotgun, while Frankie piloted the vehicle with white-knuckled intensity at ninety miles an hour.
Outside, the dawn was still an hour away. The sky was an ominous, bruised charcoal, lit only by the sodium lights of towering shipping cranes and rusty freight cars.
"Two hundred yards out, boss," Frankie called over his shoulder, cutting the headlights as we rolled off the paved road onto the crushed gravel of the 51st Street rail terminal. "Callahan’s two black Chryslers are parked beside warehouse seven."
Desmond loaded a shell into the shotgun’s chamber with a crisp, terrifying pump. "Nora, you keep your head below the window line until we secure the boy. If glass breaks, you hit the floor. Understood?"
"Understood," I whispered, clutching my medical trauma kit against my ribs.
We rounded the corner of a rusted line of grain cars. Ahead of us, bathed in the harsh glare of a work spotlight, two men in black tactical jackets were dragging a kicking, bloody figure across the gravel toward an open industrial incinerator pit.
It was Tyler. His face was covered in dirt and blood, his jacket torn to shreds.
"Ram them," Desmond commanded.
Frankie slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The three-ton armored Suburban roared forward, smashing directly into the rear quarter-panel of the first Chrysler with a deafening crash of crumpling steel.
The two gunmen scrambled backward, drawing pistols and firing wildly into our reinforced windshield. The bulletproof glass spiderwebbed with white fractures, but didn't give way an inch.
Before the shooters could recover, the passenger doors flew open. Desmond’s outer security team poured out like a strike team, returning fire with suppressed rifles. The sound of rapid, rhythmic gunfire tore through the empty rail yard, echoing against the metal hulls of the shipping containers.
Within thirty seconds, both gunmen were down on the gravel, disarmed and groaning in the dirt.
"Tyler!" I screamed, kicking the side door open and leaping out into the freezing drizzle.
"Nora, get back!" Desmond yelled from inside the vehicle, but I was already sprinting across the wet stones.
I reached Tyler just as he collapsed against a rusted wheel axle, sobbing hysterically. I dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around his trembling shoulders, checking his neck for a pulse, running my hands over his ribs to check for gunshot wounds. "I’ve got you, Ty. I’ve got you. Look at me, you're okay."
"Nora..." Tyler wept, clinging to my scrubs like a terrified child. "They were going to throw me in the furnace..."
Behind us, the hydraulic lift of the Suburban whirred smoothly downward. Desmond’s wheelchair touched the gravel, rolling forward under the hum of its twin electric motors, stopping directly in front of the kneeling, beaten gunmen.
Desmond looked down at them with eyes of absolute, merciless winter. "Where is Callahan?"
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One of the men spit blood onto the stones. "He's at the dock office, Gallagher. He already called the board. He's declaring you dead by morning."
Desmond racked the slide of his shotgun once more. "Then let’s not keep my successor waiting."
