Chapter 7 - The Forest AmbushThe headlights cut through the dense pine forest like twin surgical lasers, painting the frosted windows of the timber lodge in blinding white light.
Tire crunch.
The crunch of gravel on the access road stopped abruptly just fifty yards from the front porch.
“How many?” I demanded, grabbing my Sig Sauer from the desk and slamming a fresh magazine home.
“At least three vehicles,” Elena said, her breathing shallow but controlled as she cocked the bolt of the hunting rifle. “At least ten men. They’re fanning out through the trees to surround the perimeter.”
I turned toward the back bedroom where the four boys were still huddled.
“Mateo! Leo! Lucas! Noah!” I called out softly, keeping my voice firm.
Four sleepy heads popped out from behind the doorframe.
“Listen to me,” I said, dropping to one knee so I was eye-level with them. “We’re going to play a game of hide-and-seek. You’re going to stay with Elena, crawl through the sub-floor hatch in the pantry, and wait in the drainage culvert down by the creek. Do not make a sound. Do you understand?”
“Are the bad men coming?” Noah, the quietest of the four, asked, his voice trembling.
“They’re going to try,” I smiled grimly, reaching out to ruffle his dark curls—the exact same way my father used to ruffle mine. “But they won't get past your dad.”
Elena hurried the boys toward the pantry, her face tight with worry. “Alejandro, you can’t hold them off by yourself. There’s too many of them!”
“I’m not planning on holding them off,” I said, racking the slide of my sidearm. “I’m planning on sending a message.”
I moved to the front entrance, sliding the heavy deadbolt open just an inch. Through the gap, I watched three operatives in tactical gear advancing across the moonlit clearing, weapons leveled, sweeping the porch with thermal sights.
They thought this was an assassination.
They didn't realize they had just walked into an ambush set by the most dangerous man in the Midwest.
I dropped a smoke grenade from the hallway table, pulled the pin, and rolled it across the wooden floorboards right out through the front door.
Hiss-s-s-s!
A thick, blinding cloud of grey chemical smoke billowed across the porch, instantly clogging their thermal optics and blinding their night-vision goggles.
“Smoke! Smoke!” one of the operatives shouted in a panic.
Bang! Bang!
I fired twice through the wall paneling, not aiming to kill, but to herd them into the open courtyard where my automated security tripwires were primed.
The lead operative stumbled backward off the porch, his boot catching the wire of a flash-charge trap I had rigged five minutes earlier.
FLASH-BANG!
A deafening detonation lit the forest canopy in brilliant magnesium white, followed by screams of disorientation as the men scrambled in the blinding glare.
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I kicked the front door wide open, stepping out onto the frost-covered porch with my gun raised, the cold morning wind catching my jacket.
“Tell Marcus Vance,” I roared into the smoke, “that his grandson’s father is coming for dinner!”
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