Chapter 8 - THE LAST ATTACK ON MY FATHER
We were twenty minutes away from the protected residence.
I made it in twelve.
The house stood in a wooded federal property outside town. Smoke drifted from a damaged electrical box near the road.
One security vehicle had crashed into a tree.
An agent lay beside it, conscious but wounded in the shoulder.
“Three attackers,” he said. “They took the north entrance.”
“Where’s Daniel?”
“Inside with Agent Ruiz.”
Gunfire sounded from the house.
I moved through the trees with the response team.
A masked attacker appeared near the porch.
He fired toward us.
We took cover.
Another agent returned controlled fire, forcing him behind the building.
I circled toward the side entrance.
The kitchen window was broken.
Inside, furniture had been pushed against the hallway.
I climbed through.
A lamp lay shattered on the floor.
“Dad?”
No answer.
Footsteps pounded overhead.
I moved up the staircase.
At the landing, an attacker swung a wooden board toward my head.
I blocked with my forearm.
The board cracked against the wall.
He charged.
We slammed into the railing.
He grabbed my throat and tried to force me backward over the stairs.
I struck his ribs, broke his hold and drove him into a bedroom door.
The door burst open.
He reached for a pistol inside his coat.
I trapped his wrist with both hands.
We struggled across the room, crashing into a dresser.
The pistol fired into the ceiling.
I twisted his arm until the weapon fell, then used the bedspread to bind his wrists.
A voice shouted from downstairs.
“Agent Mercer!”
Ruiz emerged from behind the hallway barricade with blood on his sleeve.
“Your father’s in the storm shelter.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Not seriously. One attacker is trying to reach the shelter from outside.”
We ran downstairs.
The third attacker had driven a vehicle through the backyard fence.
Its front bumper had struck the storm-shelter doors, bending one hinge.
He reversed and accelerated again.
The vehicle slammed into the doors.
Metal buckled.
Dad was trapped inside.
Ruiz fired at the tires.
The attacker ducked below the dashboard and reversed for another attempt.
I saw a riding lawn mower parked near the shed.
Its keys were still inside.
I started it and drove directly across the yard.
The attacker accelerated toward the shelter.
I turned the mower sharply and jumped off.
The riderless machine rolled into the vehicle’s path.
The attacker struck it.
The mower disappeared beneath the front axle, lifting one wheel and throwing the vehicle sideways.
It crashed into a tree.
The driver climbed out holding a shotgun.
I took cover behind the damaged shelter entrance.
He fired.
Pellets tore through the wooden fence.
Ruiz moved along the opposite side.
The attacker aimed toward him.
I threw a metal shovel.
It struck the shotgun barrel, redirecting the blast into the ground.
Ruiz tackled the attacker.
They wrestled in the mud.
The attacker struck Ruiz and reached for a knife.
Dad’s storm-shelter door pushed open behind me.
He emerged holding an emergency fire extinguisher.
Dad sprayed the attacker directly in the face.
A white cloud covered him.
Ruiz disarmed and restrained him.
Dad stood in the rain, breathing heavily.
“You were told to stay inside,” I said.
“He was hurting your friend.”
“You have cracked ribs.”
“I’m still your father.”
I hugged him.
For the first time since arriving at the station, he allowed himself to break.
His body shook against mine.
“I thought I had lost both of you,” he whispered.
“You didn’t.”
Agents secured the property.
The attackers were identified as former employees of Hale Security.
One agreed to cooperate.
According to him, Reed had ordered the assault before his capture. But the mission had a second objective.
They were searching for a flash drive.
Dad stiffened when he heard that.
“What flash drive?” I asked.
He looked toward the ruined house.
“Your mother made copies of the photographs. She recorded testimony too.”
“Where?”
“She hid it inside something you would always keep.”
My mind raced through the belongings I had inherited.
Jewelry.
Books.
Photo albums.
Then I remembered the music box.
My mother had given it to me the day I graduated from the academy.
I had kept it in my office for twelve years.
The evidence had been sitting inside a federal building the entire time.
I called my supervisor.
No one answered.
I called the security desk.
Still nothing.
An emergency notification appeared on my phone.
Fire alarm activated at federal field office.
Dad saw my expression.
“They found it.”
We returned to the city under escort.
Smoke filled the upper floors of the federal building.
Firefighters evacuated employees while agents searched for intruders.
My office door had been forced open.
The music box was gone.
The security system showed one credential used to enter after hours.
Mine.
Someone had cloned my access.
The hallway camera captured a woman wearing a dark coat and carrying the music box.
She turned toward the camera.
Vanessa.
She had escaped protective custody during the courthouse assault.
A message arrived from her phone.
COME ALONE OR THE MUSIC BOX BURNS.
Attached was a photograph of her standing in the quarry’s old blasting chamber.
May you like
Behind her, Ethan was tied to a chair.
A fuel can sat at his feet.
