Chapter 7 - The Ambush at the Hangar
Midnight settled over the private airstrip on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana. A blizzard was howling off Lake Michigan, coating the runway in a sheet of treacherous, wind-blown ice. Inside Hangar 4, the twin jet engines of a Gulfstream G650 were whining to life, casting a high-pitched scream across the concrete floor.
Richard Sterling stood by the boarding stairs, clutching an aluminum briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. At sixty-two, he was still an imposing figure—tall, with manicured silver hair, wearing an expensive cashmere overcoat. But his eyes were frantic, darting toward the open hangar doors where half a dozen heavily armed private contractors in black tactical gear were scanning the perimeter with thermal scopes.
"Why haven't we cleared for taxi?" Richard screamed at his head of security, a scarred mercenary named Briggs. "I’m paying you fifty thousand dollars an hour to get this bird off the ground!"
"The tower isn't responding, Mr. Sterling!" Briggs shouted back over the roar of the engines. "The regional FAA radar just went dark. Someone threw a digital blanket over the entire sector!"
Suddenly, the floodlights illuminating the hangar flickered once, twice, and died.
The entire cavernous building was plunged into pitch-black darkness, save for the blue taxiway lights outside and the faint dashboard glow of the running jet.
"Night vision! Go, go, go!" Briggs yelled, raising his rifle.
Before the first mercenary could flip down his goggles, a single, muffled gunshot echoed from the catwalks high above. The contractor standing to Richard’s left crumpled to the concrete with a clean hole through his helmet.
Panic erupted.
"Contact high!"
Automatic gunfire ripped through the gloom, muzzle flashes lighting up the hangar in strobes of violent yellow. But the shadows seemed to swallow the bullets. From every corner, the Moretti strike team moved with terrifying, silent efficiency. Suppressed weapons coughed rhythmically. One by one, Richard’s high-priced mercenaries dropped like felled timber, caught in a crossfire they could neither see nor anticipate.
Richard backed toward the aircraft stairs, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his briefcase. "Briggs! Kill them! Kill them all!"
Briggs turned to raise his weapon, but a figure materialized from behind a stack of metal shipping crates. A heavy gloved hand seized the barrel of Briggs's rifle, wrenching it aside with bone-snapping force. A combat blade flashed in the dim light, followed by a wet, sickening gasp. Briggs collapsed, clutching his throat, drowning in his own blood.
Richard fell backward onto the lower steps of the plane, scrambling like a crab across the metal decking.
Out of the smoke and shadows strode Vincent Moretti.
He carried no rifle. His hands were clad in black leather gloves. His face was smeared with carbon, his eyes glowing with the merciless certainty of an executioner. Behind him, Daniel Vance and six Moretti enforcers fanned out, their weapons trained on the cockpit of the jet, forcing the pilots to immediately cut the engines.
The screaming turbines wound down to a low, dying whine, leaving only the sound of the howling blizzard outside and Richard’s ragged, wheezing breaths.
"Vincent..." Richard stammered, raising his hands, his silver hair plastered to his forehead with cold sweat. "Vincent, wait! We can talk about this! Think about the empire! Think about what your father and I built!"
Vincent climbed the stairs slowly, one measured step at a time. The sound of his heavy combat boots on the aluminum steps rang like the tolls of a funeral bell.
"You mentioned my father," Vincent said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "My father was a ruthless man, Richard. But he never used children as pawns. He never hid a daughter from her father. And he never forced a pregnant woman down a marble staircase."
"Vanessa did that! Not me!" Richard shrieked, groveling backward until his spine hit the aircraft door. "Vanessa went mad! She was obsessed with you! I tried to control her, Vincent! I swear on my life!"
Vincent reached down, his leather-gloved fingers wrapping around Richard’s throat like a vice of cold steel. He hoisted the sixty-two-year-old attorney off his feet with one arm, slamming him against the fuselage of the aircraft. Richard’s legs dangled in the air, his face turning purple, his hands clawing uselessly at Vincent’s immovable forearm.
"Your daughter is locked sixty feet underground, weeping in her own filth," Vincent whispered, leaning in until their noses were inches apart. "And you... you are going to give me the transfer codes for the Swiss accounts that funded Elena’s medical isolation."
"F-f-fuck... you..." Richard choked out.
Vincent didn't flinch. He tightened his grip slightly, feeling the cartilage of the man's windpipe groan under the pressure. "Julianna Vance has already decrypted your hard drives, Richard. We have the wire transfers to the crane operator who crushed Daniel Bennett. We have the forged adoption decrees. The federal prosecutors have already unsealed the RICO indictments. You aren't leaving this hangar a wealthy fugitive. You are leaving here as a broken dog."
Vincent let go. Richard crashed onto the metal stairs, coughing violently, gasping for air.
"Vance," Vincent commanded, turning his back on the pathetic figure. "Secure him in the transport. Hand him over directly to the United States Marshals at the federal courthouse in Chicago. Let him spend the rest of his miserable life in an eight-by-ten cell, watching his name and his fortune get wiped from the earth."
"No!" Richard screamed from the stairs. "Shoot me, Moretti! Shoot me like a man!"
Vincent stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder, his eyes cold and empty of all pity.
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"Death is too quick an escape for a man who stole four years of my daughter's childhood," Vincent said. "Live with the silence, Richard. Just like I had to."
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