Chapter 5 - The Ambush at The Pines
"Sarah, hold the lobby! Do not let them advance up the central staircase!" David barked into his radio, pulling me up while keeping his body positioned between us and the door. "Charles, take Evelyn's chair. We are moving out through the rear garden exit!"
The high-pitched wail of the fire alarm echoed off the concrete walls, accompanied by the muffled pop-pop-pop of suppressed gunfire echoing from the front reception area. Dr. Harrison sank to the floor, weeping in terror, hiding under a mahogany desk.
I grabbed the handles of Evelyn’s wheelchair, unhooking the IV bag from the pole and hanging it over her shoulder. "Evelyn, hold on to me," I commanded, my adrenaline pumping with a force I hadn't felt in forty years.
David kicked open the heavy glass door leading out to the rear courtyard. Rain poured down on us instantly, soaking my suit as I pushed Evelyn’s chair across the slick stone patio toward a dense line of pine trees where our secondary escape vehicle was parked.
Just as we cleared the patio, the glass doors behind us shattered into thousands of flying shards.
"Whitmore!" a heavy, gravelly voice barked over the sound of the rain.
I turned my head for a fraction of a second and saw three men clad in black tactical gear, armed with automatic pistols, emerging from the corridor. Leading them was Arthur Vance—my corporate lawyer, his slick hair ruined by the rain, holding a silenced handgun with a steady, practiced grip.
"End of the line, Charles!" Vance yelled over the storm. "You should have drank the coffee! It would have been so much cleaner for everyone!"
Before Vance could raise his weapon, David stepped out from behind a stone pillar, firing three rapid shots. Two of the tactical guards collapsed onto the wet flagstones. Vance scrambled wildly behind a fountain, firing back blind.
"Go! Go!" David shouted at me, advancing toward Vance to suppress his fire. "Get her into the SUV!"
I sprinted through the pouring rain, pushing Evelyn's wheelchair with every ounce of physical strength left in my seventy-two-year-old body. The rubber tires skidded across the muddy grass, but I refused to slow down. Evelyn held onto the armrests tightly, her eyes wide open, the shock of the cold rain seemingly washing away the fog of her heavy sedation.
I reached our reinforced SUV parked in the rear lane. The driver, one of David’s trusted private operatives, threw the side door open and helped me lift Evelyn inside onto the leather seating.
A second later, David sprinted out from the trees, sliding into the front passenger seat, his gun smoking.
"Driver, move! Now!" David ordered.
The SUV roared to life, its heavy tires tearing up the gravel drive as we accelerated through the rear service gate, breaking through the wooden barrier and sliding out onto the main island highway just as two enemy vehicles gave chase.
"Is Vance dead?" I asked, breathing heavily, my hands shaking as I wrapped a warm thermal blanket around my shivering sister-in-law.
"No," David growled, reloading his magazine. "He got away into the woods. But we crippled their primary assault team. They are desperate now, Charles. They know the poisoning failed, they know we have Evelyn, and they know their financial treason is exposed."
"Where are we going?" I asked, looking back through the tinted rear window as the headlights of the pursuing SUVs flickered in the misty distance.
"To the safest place left," David said, pulling up a GPS route on his dashboard tactical display. "My off-grid tactical compound in the Cascade Mountains. I have a medical team waiting there, full satellite comms, and a squad of former Special Forces operators. Titan Holdings and Julian cannot touch us there."
I looked down at Evelyn, who was staring up at me, her eyes clear for the first time in three years.
"Charles..." she whispered, her voice rough but steady. "The documents... Richard's secret ledger... it's not at the office."
I leaned closer. "Where is it, Evelyn?"
"In the old boathouse... at our childhood cabin in Lake Chelan," she breathed. "Richard hid... all the original Titan Holdings contracts there... before they killed him. He told me... if anything happened to him... to give it to you."
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A surge of triumph cut through the dark terror of the night. Julian and Titan Holdings thought they had erased every trace of their crimes eight years ago. But my brother had left behind a ghost—a smoking gun hidden deep in the mountains that could tear their entire criminal network apart.
"David," I said, looking up at my head of security. "Change course. We aren't just hiding in the Cascades. We're going to Lake Chelan."
