Chapter 6 - SHADOWS OVER NEWARK
The private jet Celeste had stashed at an auxiliary airstrip outside Carson City touched down on an abandoned industrial runway in New Jersey under the cover of a torrential downpour.
Every minute of that three-hour flight had been a blur of preparation. Maya was safe, left under the protection of a retired, deeply indebted Cerberus medic holed up in a fortified safehouse outside Philadelphia. Leaving her had torn my soul in two, but I could not bring my daughter into the blast radius of what was coming.
"Take this," Celeste said, sliding a customized Benelli M4 shotgun and three drum magazines of high-explosive slug rounds across the cargo table as our armored van raced toward the Newark waterfront.
I checked the chamber, racking the slide with practiced muscle memory. "How many men does Vance have inside?"
"At least forty," Celeste replied, grimacing as she adjusted her arm brace. "Former operators. Black-budget mercenaries with military hardware. They've fortified the main smelting floor. Dante walked in through the front gate forty minutes ago wearing an encrypted telemetry rig linked to twenty pounds of C-4 lined inside his tactical vest."
"He's using himself as a human detonator," I said, a wave of cold nausea washing over me.
"It was the only way Vance would let him within speaking distance," Celeste answered, staring out the rain-streaked window. "Dante told Vance that the moment his heart stops, or the moment Vance attempts to extract the encryption codes to the Moretti reserves, the signal drops and the factory becomes a crater."
"Then we have to kill Vance before Dante's timer runs out or Vance figures out how to jam the telemetry signal."
The van screeched to a halt behind a row of rusted shipping containers overlooking the abandoned Newark ironworks. The massive, decaying industrial complex loomed like a hulking metal beast against the stormy sky, steam hissing from fractured pipes and floodlights sweeping the muddy perimeter.
Through the rain, I could see armed sentries patrolling the catwalks, their rifles held in low-ready positions.
"We take the drainage conduit," I said, pointing toward a submerged culvert beneath the southern loading dock. "The storm has the water level high, which means their thermal sensors will be blinded by the temperature differential."
"My arm can't handle a swim like that," Celeste admitted, her breathing shallow.
"Then you take the high ground with the long gun," I told her, pressing a suppressed sniper rifle into her uninjured hand. "Create a perimeter breach at the north gate. Draw their reserve squad away from the smelting floor. Give me sixty seconds of chaos to breach the interior."
Celeste met my gaze. For the first time in the seven years I had known her, the smug hostility was gone. All that remained was raw respect and desperation. "Bring him back, Issa. He's lived in hell for five years trying to avenge you. Don't let him die thinking you're still a ghost."
"I'm not letting anyone take him from me," I said coldly. "Not again."
I slipped out of the van into the freezing rain, dissolving into the darkness like smoke.
I slid into the swollen drainage canal, the icy water hitting my chest with a shock that drove the air from my lungs. But my mind was fire. Every step, every stroke through the murky runoff brought me closer to the man who had traded his soul to save mine.
May you like
Ahead, the ironworks groaned in the storm. High above, a sniper rifle cracked—a clean, suppressed hiss, followed immediately by the roar of an exploding fuel drum at the north gate.
Celeste had done her job. The hunt was on.
