Chapter 8 - The Siege of the Clearing
"Up! Now!" Damian commanded, slamming the safe shut, grabbing the manila folder and shoving it inside his suit jacket.
He didn't waste a second. He scooped Lucy into his left arm and grabbed Sadie by her coat collar, lifting her with ease. "Nora, take my spare weapon from my hip. You know how to shoot?"
"No!" I cried, panic flooding my veins.
"Point and squeeze," he said mercilessly, shoving a compact Glock into my hands. "Do not hesitate. Anyone who isn't wearing a gray armband is an enemy. Understood?"
I clutched the heavy cold metal, my knuckles white, nodded numbly, and sprinted behind him up the concrete stairs.
When we emerged into the main house, the clearing outside had turned into an active war zone.
The heavy *thud-thud-thud* of high-caliber rifles tore through the damp autumn air. Bullets ripped through the exterior wooden siding of the cottage, shredding the drywall into white dust and showering us with splinters.
"Get in the kitchen!" Damian roared, dropping to his knees and sliding the girls beneath the heavy cast-iron stove. "Stay flat! Both of you, faces in the floor!"
Sadie was crying now, clutching her sister's arm, but she obeyed instantly, burying her face against the dirty linoleum.
Through the shattered front window, I saw the scene on the driveway. Three black Chevy Suburbans had smashed through the chain-link gate. A dozen men in tactical gear, armed with assault rifles, were advancing toward the cottage in a suppressive formation, laying down fire on Damian’s five private guards.
Two of Damian’s men were already down in the mud. The remaining three were pinned behind the tracks of the massive yellow excavator.
"They brought the whole dock crew," Damian muttered, checking his magazine. "Vance must have had a dead-man's trigger on his radio. If he didn't report in every twenty minutes, the hit squad was pre-authorized to sanitize the grid."
"We’re trapped!" I screamed over the deafening cacophony of gunfire. "They’re going to burn the house down with us inside!"
"They won't burn it," Damian said, his eyes scanning the yard with cold, analytical brilliance. "They need Leo’s red safe. They don't know the combination. They need to secure the documents before they level this place, or the state auditors will seize everything in probate."
He turned to look at the massive excavator parked forty yards away in the mud. The keys were still in the ignition—I remembered seeing the yellow lanyard dangling from the steering column when the foreman stepped down.
"Nora," Damian said, grabbing my shoulder with an intensity that pinned me to the spot. "Can you drive an automatic loader?"
"What? I’m an inventory clerk!"
"You logged twelve hundred hours on heavy industrial forklifts at the Bayonne depot last year," Damian said, his gaze drilling into mine. "I review every employee file, Nora. An excavator is just a forklift with tracks. Can you drive it?"
I looked through the shattered window at the giant, armor-plated machine. The cab was reinforced steel. The engine block was bulletproof.
"If I get in that cab, they’ll shoot me before I turn the key," I said, my teeth chattering.
"They won't be shooting at you," Damian said grimly, loading a fresh magazine into his pistol. "Because I’m going out the front door."
"Damian, no! That’s suicide!"
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"They want me, Nora," he said, and for the first time, a dark, wicked smile touched the corner of his lips. "And I owe my brother a ten-year debt. When I draw their fire toward the tree line, you get the girls into that cab. Put the bucket down to protect the windshield, and drive through their vehicles. Don't stop. Don't look back. Drive straight onto Route 9."
Before I could grab his arm, Damian stood upright, kicked open the splintered front door, and stepped directly onto the porch, firing into the open yard.
