Chapter 8 - The Great Blackout
The guard’s eyes went wide with a terror that transcended the physical. He looked at Dominic—a man he had been told was a helpless cripple, a relic of the past—and saw only a monster with cold, dead eyes and the grip of an industrial vice.
"Where is Carmine?" Dominic asked, his voice a low hiss beneath the roar of the diesel pumps.
"He... he’s in the main office," the guard stammered, his voice shaking. "Top floor. He’s waiting for the final manifest from the docks. He’s got four guys with him."
"Tony," Dominic said, never taking his eyes off the guard. "Tie him up. Use the steel zip-ties. Then set the timer."
Two minutes later, Dominic and Tony slipped back out into the freezing darkness, leaving the guard bound and gagged behind a stack of oil drums. Behind them, a small, bright-blue spark began to hiss on the copper fuel lines of the primary pump.
By the time they reached the Suburban, the sleet had turned into a full blizzard, white flakes swirling through the dark like ash. Dominic hoisted himself into the middle seat, his hands shaking slightly from the intense physical exertion.
"Is it done?" Nora asked from the back, her voice barely a whisper.
"In thirty seconds," Dominic said, looking at his watch.
They waited. The silence inside the armored vehicle was absolute, save for the soft, rhythmic breathing of Leo, who remained asleep under his blankets.
Three. Two. One.
A sudden, brilliant white flash illuminated the dark sky behind the cold-storage warehouse, followed by a dull, heavy thud that shook the ground beneath the Suburban’s tires.
Instantly, the high-intensity halogen lights surrounding the warehouse flickered, died, and plunged the entire facility into a deep, impenetrable blackness. The low, constant hum of the facility’s ventilation system vanished, replaced only by the howling of the winter wind.
At the loading docks, the heavy steel security doors—halfway through loading the second truck—slammed down with a violent, mechanical screech as their pneumatic brakes failed without power.
"The gates are down," Tony said, peer-scanning through his thermal scope. "They’re locked in. The guards at the gate are running toward the office."
"Start the engine, Marcus," Dominic ordered, his eyes shining with a dark, predatory fire. "We're going to the front gate."
Nora leaned forward, her hand catching Dominic’s shoulder. "Dominic, you said you weren't going in."
"I'm not," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on her arms stand up. "I'm going to let Carmine realize that the man he thought was dead is the one holding the shovel."
The Suburban roared to life, its heavy-duty engine purring with a low, threatening growl as Marcus drove it out from behind the brickworks and directly toward the main entrance of the blacked-out facility.
As they approached the main gates, three men emerged from the darkness, their flashlights cutting through the driving snow as they tried to see what had destroyed their power grid. They saw the massive, matte-black SUV rolling toward them like a tank, and they raised their rifles.
"Tony," Dominic said.
Tony didn't need a second order. He opened the passenger window, leveled his tactical shotgun, and fired two heavy-load beanbag rounds into the chest of the lead guard. The impact sounded like a baseball bat hitting a leather sofa, throwing the man ten feet back into the snow.
The other two guards, realizing they were outgunned and completely blind in the dark, threw their weapons into the mud and ran into the surrounding woods.
Marcus brought the Suburban to a halt directly across the main driveway, completely blocking any vehicle from leaving the facility.
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Dominic rolled his window down. The freezing wind whipped into the cabin, carrying the smell of burnt copper and diesel fuel. He picked up the heavy, encrypted satellite phone and dialed a number he had memorized twenty years ago.
Across the dark yard, inside the dark, concrete office building, a phone began to ring.
