Chapter 7 - Ambush at the Hangar
The private airfield at Warwick was enveloped in a drizzling, bone-chilling mist as two black Bellini SUVs cut their headlights, coasting silently into the shadows of Hangar Four. The twin-engine Gulfstream sat on the tarmac, its turbine engines winding up with a deafening, high-pitched whine that drowned out the sound of footsteps on wet tarmac.
Matteo stepped out of the lead vehicle, pulling a silenced automatic from his holster. Vivien sat in the reinforced rear seat of the SUV, under strict orders from Dario not to move, but her hands were clenched tightly in the wool of Matteo's sweater.
"Dario, take the perimeter. Disable the landing gear," Matteo ordered into his comms. "Nobody leaves this tarmac."
Before Dario could signal the advance, the heavy corrugated metal doors of Hangar Four slid violently open. Flashlights blazed into the darkness, blinding the Bellini enforcers as automatic gunfire erupted from behind stacked shipping crates.
It wasn't an escape; it was an ambush.
"Trap!" Dario yelled, returning fire as sparks sprayed off the hood of the SUV. "Russo didn't send Marcus to run—he used him as bait to draw you out of the safehouse!"
From the second-floor gantry of the hangar, Dominic Russo stepped forward, holding a high-powered tactical rifle, flanked by a dozen heavily armed mercenaries. Beside him, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, stood Marcus Vance, clutching a metal briefcase to his chest.
"You're predictable, Matteo!" Russo’s voice boomed over the tarmac through an industrial loudspeaker. "You always come for the traitors yourself! And the best part? You brought your little secretary right along with you to watch you bleed!"
A hail of bullets tore through the side of the lead SUV, spider-webbing the reinforced glass inches from Vivien's face. The engine block hissed with steam as coolant sprayed across the pavement. Matteo’s men were pinned down behind the open doors, heavily outmatched by the elevated crossfire.
Inside the vehicle, Vivien’s mind raced with terrifying clarity. She looked at the dashboard console. The SUV’s engine was ruined, but the auxiliary hydraulics and heavy industrial winch mounted on the front bumper were still powered by the secondary battery.
She looked up at the hangar structure. The main electrical junction box for the entire gantry—the one that controlled the overhead halogen lighting and the automated crane tracks—sat mounted on the support pillar twenty yards directly in front of the SUV’s heavy steel bumper.
"Hart, stay down!" Matteo shouted over the gunfire, crouching near the rear wheel well, his gun barking as he dropped one of Russo's snipers on the balcony.
Vivien ignored him. She scrambled over the center console into the driver's seat. She slammed her foot down onto the emergency auxiliary switch, engaging the industrial steel winch cable that had been hooked to the reinforced structural beam during their transport preparations.
With a roar of grinding gears, she jammed the transmission lever into reverse and gunned the battery-driven torque.
The heavy steel cable snapped taut with the sound of a whip. The massive wooden support pillar holding the gantry collapsed inward under thousands of pounds of pressure.
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With a catastrophic shriek of tearing metal, the entire second-floor walkway tilted violently toward the tarmac. Russo’s shooters screamed as they lost their footing, rifles tumbling through the air into the darkness below. The industrial junction box exploded in a shower of blinding blue electrical sparks, plunging the entire hangar into pitch-black chaos.
"Now, Matteo!" Vivien screamed through the shattered window. "Take them now!"
