Chapter 8 - The Raid
"FEDERAL AGENTS! ON THE GROUND! DO IT NOW!" Marcus screamed, leading the stack through the smoking breach.
A flashbang grenade arced over our heads into the central room, exploding with a violent CRACK and a blinding pulse of magnesium light that illuminated the entire warehouse.
The scene inside was straight out of a horror film.
The center of the windowless warehouse had been converted into a crude, plastic-sheathed operating room. Fluorescent surgical lamps hung from overhead steel beams. On a stainless steel gurney in the middle of the plastic enclosure lay Fiona, small and defenseless, draped in a white surgical sheet with intravenous lines taped to her small arm.
Standing beside her were two men in blue surgical scrubs, their hands dripping with medical prep solution.
Richard Vance was standing near the foot of the table holding heavy leather restraint straps. When the door blew, he spun around, his eyes wide with shock, his hand diving instinctively toward his coat pocket for a weapon.
"DROP IT!" Marcus roared, raising his suppressed rifle.
THWACK-THWACK!
Two non-lethal rubber rounds struck Richard full in the chest, lifting his two-hundred-pound frame off his feet and slamming him hard into a stack of metal supply crates. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for air, clutching his shattered ribs.
"DON'T SHOOT! DON'T SHOOT!" one of the Swiss doctors shrieked, throwing his hands into the air and dropping to his knees on the blood-spotted concrete floor. The second doctor instantly put his hands on his head and backed into a corner.
Wendy was standing near a folding table piled high with stacks of bearer bonds and passport documents.
When the stun grenade detonated, she stumbled back, her hand clawing wildly at her chest. As the smoke began to clear, her eyes met mine through the haze.
Her face transformed from shock to pure, terrifying malice.
"Julian?" she gasped, her voice shrill and disbelieving. "You... you were supposed to be in Chicago!"
I ignored her completely. I dropped my weapon into its holster, sprinted across the plastic-sheathed floor, and threw myself beside Fiona’s gurney.
"Fiona! Fiona, baby!" I cried out, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I checked her neck for a pulse.
Her skin was pale and cool, but her pulse was steady, beating warm and alive against my fingers. She stirred slightly, her eyes fluttering open just a fraction under the heavy weight of the sedative.
"Daddy...?" she whimpered, her voice barely a breath. "You came...?"
"I'm here, baby. I'm right here," I sobbed, pulling the IV line carefully from her hand and wrapping her small, shivering body in my heavy tactical jacket. "Nobody is ever going to hurt you again. I promise you. I promise."
"SECURE THE PERIMETER!" Marcus shouted over the radio as his operators slammed the Swiss courier onto the concrete and zip-tied his wrists behind his back. "Building is clear! Call the paramedics!"
While two operators tended to Fiona, Marcus stepped toward Wendy, who was slowly backing toward the open fire exit at the side of the warehouse, her eyes darting frantically toward the dark rain outside.
"Don't even think about it, Mrs. Vance," Marcus said, pointing his sidearm at her chest. "It’s over."
Wendy stopped. She looked at Richard, who was moaning in agony on the floor, coughing up blood from his broken ribs. Then she looked at me, holding my daughter in my arms.
Instead of collapsing in remorse, her face twisted into a grotesque, arrogant sneer.
"You think you won, Julian?" Wendy spat, her voice ringing off the rusted iron rafters. "You think you saved your family? Look at yourself! You’re a pathetic, workaholic fool who didn't even notice his own wife was drowning in debt and grief! I built this family! I saved my son's life when the doctors said he was dead! I did what a real parent does!"
"You bled my daughter, Wendy!" I roared, standing up from the gurney, my chest violent with rage. "You drugged your own daughter! You were going to throw Fiona’s body into the ocean!"
"She was a resource!" Wendy shrieked, completely losing her sanity as the reality of her capture closed in. "She’s a child! Children belong to their elders! She was born to save this family’s bloodline!"
Before she could take another breath, Marcus stepped forward, grabbed her wrist, twisted her arm behind her back, and slammed her face-first against the cold brick wall.
CLICK-CLICK.
The heavy steel handcuffs locked around her wrists.
May you like
"Wendy Vance," Marcus said in a cold, monotone voice. "You are under arrest for federal kidnapping, human trafficking, illegal medical procedures, and attempted murder."
As Marcus dragged her toward the door, Wendy continued to scream, her shrill voice echoing uselessly out into the storm, drowned out by the rising sirens of approaching federal law enforcement vehicles.
