Chapter 4 - THE OVERPASS FIRE
The Maybach’s heavy armored chassis slammed into the concrete highway barrier.
BANG.
The impact threw Dr. Chen across the jump seat, his medical kit spilling gauze and syringes across the floor.
Rhett locked both arms around my torso, his body completely absorbing the shock of the collision.
The smell of burnt rubber and pulverized concrete filled the cabin.
Through the fractured rear window, I saw the second Suburban erupt into an orange mushroom of flame.
The shockwave lifted the three-ton vehicle two feet off the asphalt, rolling it into the median ditch.
"Paul! Back up!" Leo shouted into the front radio.
"Transmission is jammed!" the driver yelled back, coughing on the deploying airbag dust.
"Front axle is pinned against the guardrail!"
Automatic gunfire erupted from the highway overpass above us.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Heavy rifle rounds hammered into the roof of the Maybach like a hail of iron sledgehammers.
The ballistic steel held, but the cabin groaned under the sustained pressure.
"They have high ground," Rhett said.
His voice was dead level.
He released his grip on my waist.
He reached beneath his seat and pulled out an M4 short-barreled tactical carbine.
He slapped a forty-round magazine into the receiver with a sharp CLACK.
"Dr. Chen," Rhett ordered.
"Get her to the floorboards."
"Cover her with the ballistic blankets."
"Rhett, no!" I screamed, grabbing his wrist with my uninjured right hand.
My fingers dug through his bloody shirt cuff.
"There are too many of them!"
"Look at the bridge!"
Through the cracked windshield, six men in white winter camouflage were advancing along the overpass railing.
They were carrying rocket launchers and heavy machine guns.
Rhett looked down at my hand on his wrist.
He didn't pull away.
He reached up with his left hand, gently peeling my fingers from his skin, and brought my knuckles to his lips.
He kissed my bruised hand.
A slow, deliberate, terrifying promise.
"You kept my house running for fourteen months, Isa."
"Now let me do my work."
Rhett kicked the rear passenger door open.
The freezing February wind howled into the cabin, carrying the scent of burning diesel and lake snow.
Rhett stepped out onto Lake Shore Drive into the blizzard of bullets.
He didn't crouch.
He didn't cower behind the tires.
He raised the carbine to his shoulder with one arm, using the door frame as an iron brace.
He fired three-round bursts with surgical, rhythmic precision.
Thump-thump-thump.
The first shooter on the overpass dropped, tumbling fifty feet down the embankment into the snow.
Thump-thump-thump.
The second shooter’s weapon exploded in his hands, throwing him backward across the concrete span.
From the lead Suburban fifty yards ahead, Leo Vance and three surviving operators dismounted, laying down a devastating field of crossfire with drum-fed shotguns.
The overpass became an inferno of returning lead and concrete dust.
I pulled myself up onto the edge of the leather seat, ignoring Dr. Chen’s desperate attempts to pull me down.
Through the swirling snow, a third vehicle appeared.
Not a dump truck.
A customized black Dodge Ram with heavy bull-bars, tearing down the southbound lanes against traffic.
Standing in the bed of the truck, holding a fifty-caliber anti-material rifle mounted on a tripod, was Marcus Vance.
Julian’s father.
A monster with slicked silver hair and cold, reptilian eyes.
Marcus aimed the massive barrel directly at the unarmored engine block of our Maybach.
If that fifty-caliber round hit the fuel reservoir, the entire car would vaporize in three seconds.
"RHETT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"THE TRUCK!"
Rhett turned his head.
He saw the heavy caliber barrel locking onto our position.
He didn't run for the ditch.
He didn't dive behind the concrete barrier.
He stepped directly in front of the open door where I was sitting.
He raised his carbine, emptying the remaining twenty rounds of his magazine straight into the driver's windshield of the charging Ram.
The Dodge’s front tires blew out simultaneously.
The three-ton truck spun sideways across the black ice, its rear bumper clipping an overhead light stanchion.
The stanchion groaned, its steel base shearing under the kinetic force.
The fifty-foot iron pole collapsed downward like a falling redwood tree.
It crashed directly across the bed of the Dodge Ram, crushing the tripod and pinning Marcus Vance’s legs beneath three tons of galvanized steel.
The sound of sirens began to howl in the distance.
Not city police.
The heavy, dual-tone air horns of the Illinois State Police tactical response units.
Rhett threw his empty carbine into the snow.
He turned back to the Maybach.
His left shoulder was smoking, shredded by shrapnel from the overpass railing.
A thin line of dark blood ran down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath his ruined collar.
He leaned into the open door, his breathing heavy, his amber eyes burning with an ancient, untamed fury.
"Leo!" Rhett roared across the highway.
"Secure the perimeter!"
"Get the secondary transport from the lower drive!"
Leo sprinted across the snow, dragging his carbine.
"Don Valin! The State Police—"
"The State Police work for my brother-in-law, Leo," Rhett said coldly.
"Tell them to clear the southbound lanes."
Rhett reached into the car, scooping me up against his chest once more.
His bloody hands held me tight against his ribs.
I buried my face into his neck, shaking so violently that my teeth clicked together.
"You're out of your mind," I wept against his collar.
"You stood in front of a fifty-caliber rifle."
Rhett walked through the burning debris toward the waiting secondary SUV.
May you like
"I told you four years ago, Isa," he whispered into my hair.
"I don't lose the same hand twice."
