Chapter 11 - A Knock in the Dark
Before Michael could answer, the dashboard’s radio—even though severed from main power—emitted a violent burst of static.
A sharp, synchronized clicking sounded from the shadows surrounding the drydock.
Michael’s combat reflexes, dormant for over two decades, detonated in an instant. “Out! Now!” he roared, slamming his shoulder into the passenger door and throwing his weight backward to grab Lucas’s collar.
A split second later, a high-velocity round punched through the sedan’s windshield, spraying tempered glass across the dashboard like diamonds. The suppressed thwip-crack of sniper fire echoed against the corrugated steel of the shipyard warehouses.
“Go, go, go!” Callahan shouted, dropping low into the footwell and drawing a standard-issue Sig Sauer 9mm from his shoulder holster.
Michael hauled Lucas out into the freezing mud beneath the dock’s shadow just as three more rounds stitched the side panel of the car. Lucas hit the gravel, his hands scraping raw against broken shells and rust. The world became a chaotic nightmare of muzzle flashes, shouting voices echoing through the fog, and the heavy thud of tactical boots converging on their position.
“Two shooters at the crane tower! One flanking from the drydock gate!” Michael barked, his voice no longer that of a tired, broken father, but of a seasoned Special Warfare operator reading a kill zone in fractions of a second.
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He grabbed a heavy iron pipe from a pile of marine scrap, his eyes scanning the darkness with lethal clarity. “Callahan! Suppressive fire on the crane catwalk! Lucas, stay on my spine. If you run, you die.”
Lucas scrambled to his feet behind his father, terrified, his heart pounding against his ribs like a sledgehammer. For the first time in his life, he saw the man his father had actually been—not a ghost, not a coward, but a predator awakened from a twenty-four-year slumber.
