Chapter 5 - The Ambush at the Gate
Back at the Cross estate in Chicago, the rain was coming down in sheets.
At midnight sharp, three black vans pulled silently into the alleyway outside the North Gate.
Inside the lead van, Falcone’s chief enforcer, a killer named Dominick, looked at his watch. He pulled out a encrypted satellite radio.
“Victor,” Dominick growled into the mic. “We’re at the gate. Turn off the perimeter grid.”
Inside the estate’s security room, Victor Vance sat alone at the console. Tears still stained his face, but his hand was steady on the master override switch. Standing right behind him, out of view of the security monitors, were four of Damian’s most loyal guards, their weapons aiming through the doorway.
Victor took a deep breath, pressing the radio button. “Grid is offline, Dominick. The camera feed is looping a blank recording for the next fifteen minutes. You have a clean path through the rose garden to the rear terrace doors.”
“Good job, old man,” Dominick sneered through the radio. “Your boy will be delivered to you tomorrow morning—in pieces.”
The radio went dead.
Outside, the heavy iron North Gate swung open with a slow, electronic hum.
Fifteen heavily armed Falcone mercenary soldiers stepped out of the black vans, moving swiftly through the rain across the gravel path toward the rose garden. They wore dark tactical gear and carried military-grade rifles, their night-vision goggles glowing green in the dark.
“Move fast!” Dominick whispered, leading the column through the tall hedges. “Damian Cross is asleep in the master suite on the second floor. Take out the housemaids first if you see them.”
As the last mercenary entered the rose garden, the heavy iron North Gate behind them suddenly slammed shut with a thunderous CLANG!
The electronic lock engaged with a loud, mechanical deadbolt.
Dominick spun around. “What the hell?!”
Instantly, six massive stadium floodlights mounted on the estate walls burst to life, illuminating the entire rose garden with ten thousand candlepower of blinding white light.
The rain sizzled against the hot glass of the floodlights.
“DROPPED YOUR WEAPONS!” a voice roared through the estate’s public address system.
Standing on the high stone terrace overlooking the garden stood forty Cross soldiers, their rifles aimed down at the trapped mercenaries from fortified positions behind the stone balustrades.
Dominick squinted through the blinding white glare, his heart dropping into his stomach. “IT’S A SETUP! FIRE! FIRE!”
Before a single Falcone soldier could raise his rifle, the Cross soldiers opened fire with non-lethal flashbangs and tear gas canisters, filling the rose garden with deafening explosions and thick white chemical smoke.
The mercenaries collapsed to their knees, clutching their ears and eyes, screaming as their weapons dropped into the mud. Within sixty seconds, the entire fifteen-man strike team was disarmed, handcuffed, and forced flat onto their faces in the soaked gravel.
The heavy glass terrace doors opened.
Victor Vance walked out onto the stone patio, accompanied by his son, Leo, who was wrapped in a warm wool blanket, supported by a medic.
Victor looked down at the trapped mercenaries, then at Dominick, who was lying in the mud, staring up at him with pure hatred.
“You lied to me, old man!” Dominick shrieked through the tear gas, coughing violently. “You sold out your own deal!”
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Victor looked down at his battered, bleeding son standing beside him. He pulled off the security badge from his lapel and dropped it down onto Dominick’s face in the mud.
“I didn't sell out my deal,” Victor said, his voice ringing loud and clear over the rain. “I protected my family. Something you monsters know nothing about.”
