Chapter 6 - Midnight at Cicero
The Cicero rail yard was a vast, desolate landscape of rusted iron, gravel beds, and towering stacks of shipping containers that looked like monoliths against the midnight sky. A low, heavy fog had rolled off the lake, mixing with the industrial smog of the industrial corridor to create a thick, yellow haze that reduced visibility to less than fifty feet. The sound of distant shunting engines echoed through the dark like the groans of trapped animals.
Caleb parked the delivery van behind a mountain of decommissioned rail cars, the engine dying with a faint, sputtering sigh. He turned to Clara, his hands reaching into his jacket to pull out a small, compact Walther PPK—the same weapon she had carried during their escape from Boston. He placed it in her hand, his fingers lingering over hers.
"If anyone comes through that office door who isn't me or Roman, you don't talk to them," Caleb said, his eyes burning through the shadows of the van. "You fire until the magazine is empty, then you lock yourself in the electrical vault. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," Clara whispered, her fingers wrapping around the cold steel of the grip.
They moved through the gravel in a silent, single file. Roman was fifty yards ahead, his tall silhouette disappearing and reappearing through the yellow fog like a wraith. He carried a heavy tactical shotgun beneath his long coat, his movements fluid and entirely without hesitation. Silvano followed behind him, a dark shape carrying a high-grade digital camera equipped with a night-vision lens.
They reached the yard office—a small, two-story brick building with green-painted window trim that was peeling from decades of exposure. Clara slipped inside, her boots making no sound against the linoleum floor. The main terminal was active, its green phosphorescent screen glowing in the dark room like a malicious eye.
She sat down, her fingers instantly finding the home row of the keyboard. Within ninety seconds, she had bypassed the local security network and accessed the controls for the massive overhead gantry cranes that spanned the entire length of the central rail line. On her screen, three thermal signatures appeared near the southern gate—the distinct shapes of three heavy flatbed trucks moving slowly through the gravel without their headlights on.
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"They're in the yard," Clara whispered into her earpiece, her voice carrying across the local radio frequency she had established with Caleb. "Container number 404-Bavaria is on the second rail car from the platform. The trucks are positioning themselves beneath the crane line."
Through the window, she watched the shadow of the first truck stop next to the rail car. Four men stepped out of the cabin, their faces covered by dark knit masks, their hands carrying heavy crowbars and pneumatic cutting tools. They didn't know that eighty feet above their heads, the massive steel claw of the automated crane was beginning to move, its electric motor humming silently in the midnight air.
