Chapter 8 - Fire on the Water
The industrial fog off Lake Michigan was heavy with the smell of diesel exhaust and sulfur.
At Pier 14, the dark waters lapped rhythmically against the barnacle-crusted pilings of the abandoned coal terminal.
Julian Drake pushed me behind a row of rusted shipping containers, his rifle resting on the corrugated steel, his eyes scanning the perimeter lights of the access road.
“Keep your head down, Eloan,” he said quietly. “Vance’s forward team just breached the perimeter gate.”
Two hundred yards away, the headlights of three black SUVs swept across the wet asphalt, their engines growling in the damp night air.
Men in tactical vests stepped out of the vehicles, raising short-barreled carbines as they fanned out across the open tarmac.
Harlan Vance stepped out of the center vehicle, wearing a heavy trench coat, holding a tablet displaying our thermal signatures behind the containers.
“Drake!” Vance’s voice boomed through a vehicle bullhorn, mocking and arrogant. “You’re outmanned and outgunned! Hand over the girl and her brat, and I’ll let you walk away with your retainer intact!”
Julian didn't answer. He adjusted his optic, his breathing slow and rhythmic.
My fingers dug into the cold concrete beneath me, my body trembling as I curled tightly into a protective shell over my stomach.
“Please,” I prayed into the darkness, squeezing my eyes shut. “Let my baby live. Please.”
Suddenly, the night sky was torn apart by the deafening roar of rotor blades.
Two massive black Sikorsky helicopters swooped low over the harbor basin, their powerful searchlights pinning Vance’s men in blinding columns of white illumination.
Before Vance’s contractors could acquire their targets, the access road behind them exploded into chaos.
Four armored tactical trucks smashed through the chain-link gates at sixty miles per hour, box-trapping Vance’s SUVs in a screeching ring of steel and bull bars.
Dozens of armed men in dark uniforms poured out of the trucks, forming an impenetrable skirmish line with weapons drawn.
From the lead truck stepped Cassian Veyer.
He wore no body armor. He held no weapon.
He strode into the center of the blinding headlights with the unyielding, terrifying arrogance of a man who owned the night itself.
“Vance!” Cassian’s voice cut through the thrum of the helicopters like an executioner’s axe. “Drop your weapons, or none of you leave this dock alive.”
Vance’s men looked at the helicopters hovering thirty feet above them, looked at the overwhelming firepower surrounding their position, and slowly, one by one, tossed their carbines onto the wet pavement.
Vance stood alone in the headlights, his face pale, his tablet slipping from his limp fingers and shattering against the asphalt.
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Cassian didn't even look at his defeated rival.
He turned his back on Vance completely, breaking into a desperate, frantic run straight toward the shipping containers where Julian and I were hiding.
