Chapter 8 - The Ambush at Dawn
The heavy iron bulkhead doors of the warehouse shrieked as a heavy hydraulic charge blew the locking mechanism outward in a shower of sparks and white-hot metal. Elena screamed, diving behind a stack of rusted shipping pallets as automatic gunfire chewed through the corrugated steel walls, sending lethal splinters of wood and lead flying in every direction.
"Stay down!" Marcus yelled, rolling across the concrete floor and returning fire with three precise shots toward the blinding flash of the doorway.
"You said this place was safe!" Elena yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire, her hands clamped tightly over her ears.
"It was safe until you routed a gigabit data leak through a public cellular relay!" Marcus shouted back, reloading his weapon with practiced efficiency. "They triangulated our IP address the second the broadcast hit the wire!"
More men poured through the breached doorway, clad in tactical black gear and wearing night-vision goggles that glowed an eerie, phosphorescent green in the dim light of the warehouse. Marcus grabbed Elena by the collar of her silk blouse, hauling her upright and pushing her toward a narrow drainage tunnel set into the back wall of the dry dock.
"Get through the pipe! It leads to the river!" Marcus ordered, firing another suppressive burst.
"I'm not leaving you here!" Elena cried, her eyes wide with terror as a bullet sparked off the concrete floor inches from her boot.
"Go, Elena! If they take us both, the story dies in five minutes!" Marcus shoved her hard into the dark, echoing mouth of the concrete drainage pipe.
She scrambled on her hands and knees through the foul-smelling sludge, the sound of gunfire fading behind her into a dull, rhythmic thud. After what felt like hours of crawling through the suffocating dark, she caught the faint scent of fresh air and rushing water ahead.
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She burst out of the pipe, tumbling down a steep muddy embankment directly into the freezing shallows of the river. Gasping for air, she dragged herself onto the rocky shore and looked back toward the warehouse. A massive plume of black smoke was already billowing into the pale morning sky, accompanied by the distant, wailing sirens of approaching police cruisers.
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