Chapter 8 - Into the Lion’s Den
Midnight descended over the abandoned dry docks on the city’s industrial waterfront like a suffocating shroud of fog and saltwater. A rusted, half-sunken cargo freighter served as the temporary staging ground for the operatives linked to The Raven. Marin and Elias moved through the rotting wooden piers like twin panthers, their synchronized movements flawless and silent.
Elias’s private strike team held the perimeter, cutting off all potential escape routes, while Marin and Elias slipped through a rusted hull breach into the belly of the ship. Inside, the damp air smelled of diesel, rust, and copper. Three armed lookouts stood clustered around a flickering barrel fire, speaking in low, hurried tones about an impending extraction.
Before Elias could signal his men to initiate a coordinated breach, a sudden sound echoed from the catwalk above—a metallic clink of a rifle safety disengaging. A sniper positioned on the upper gantry had spotted their thermal signatures through the gaps in the iron grating.
"Incoming!" Marin shouted, shoving Elias violently to the side just as a heavy-caliber round punched through the steel plating where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier.
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Without hesitation, Marin vaulted onto a stack of wooden crates, scaled a rusted ladder with breathtaking agility, and disappeared into the shadows of the upper deck before the sniper could cycle his bolt for a second shot.
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