Chapter 5 - The Port Newark Trap
The rain poured down in torrential sheets over the dark, rusted expanse of the Port Newark industrial district. The air smelled of sulfur, salt water, and decaying iron.
Six blacked-out SUVs glided quietly through the maze of stacked shipping containers, stopping two hundred yards from the loom of the abandoned chemical refinery. Thirty heavily armed Benadetti enforcers dismounted silently, their assault rifles drawn, forming a perimeter around the structure.
Marco stepped out into the freezing rain, flanked by Cassian. He looked up at the towering, dark windows of the refinery. The building looked completely dead, but to Marco’s trained eye, the subtle glint of optical thermal cameras mounted on the rusted catwalks gave away the ambush.
"He knows we're here," Cassian whispered, signaling the team to advance.
"Let him know," Marco said.
Without warning, Marco raised his sidearm and fired three shots directly into the refinery's main transformer box mounted on an exterior pole. Sparks erupted in a blinding shower of blue and orange light, cutting power to the building’s thermal grid and plunging the interior into pitch darkness.
"Go! Go! Go!" Cassian roared.
The Benadetti strike team breached the heavy steel doors with explosive charges, rushing into the massive, echoing interior of the refinery. Flashlights cut through the lingering smoke, revealing rows of massive chemical vats and rusted catwalks crisscrossing four stories overhead.
Suddenly, a heavy iron blast door slammed down behind them, cutting off the exit and trapping Marco, Cassian, and eight soldiers inside the central bay.
High above them, red emergency lights flickered to life, casting a blood-red glare over the steel girders.
"Welcome back to the dark, Marco!" a raspy, synthesized voice echoed through the industrial loudspeakers mounted on the walls.
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Marco looked up toward the fourth-story control room. Standing behind reinforced bulletproof glass was a figure in a dark trench coat, leaning heavily on a steel cane. His face was obscured by shadows, but as he stepped closer to the red light, Marco saw the deep, jagged thermal scars covering the left side of his jaw and throat—remnants of the high-voltage electrical burns from the dam fifteen years ago.
Julian Vance was alive.
