Caleb moved swiftly to the heavy, reinforced steel storage locker bolted in the corner of the room. He spun the combination dial with practiced, urgent speed. “If they’re Leo Varga’s crew, we are in incredibly deep trouble. That name meant absolute terror in Chicago back in the nineties. Heavy-duty syndicate operators. Utterly ruthless.”
He pulled out a sleek, modern heavy-duty flare launcher and tossed a heavy canister of blinding tactical flares to Sarah. She fumbled it awkwardly, nearly dropping it on the floor. “I don’t know how to use this equipment,” she stammered in panic.
“You learn right now,” Caleb growled, expertly checking the mechanism on his own deterrent device. “Safety switch is here. Point and squeeze to create a blinding flash. But absolutely do not engage unless they force their way through that door.”
He moved quickly back to the glowing security monitors. Four distinct screens showed grainy, infrared views of the compound’s perimeter. “There,” Caleb pointed intensely to the screen monitoring the long driveway.
The black SUV was creeping silently down Caleb’s long dirt road, its headlights completely off. They were trying to catch him completely unaware.
“How did they find me?” Sarah asked, panic rising in her throat.
“They didn’t track you,” Caleb said grimly, his eyes glued to the tense screen. “They tracked her.” He forcefully tapped the leather binder.
“Varga has been obsessively looking for Susan O’Neill and those missing diamonds for thirty long years. She must have finally slipped up. Made a traceable phone call. Used an old, flagged ID. Something. They found her, and now they’ve found you.”
The black SUV stopped exactly fifty yards from the main workshop. The two men got out silently. They moved with terrifying tactical precision, spacing out perfectly, heavy equipment raised and ready.
These weren’t common, opportunistic burglars. They moved exactly like highly trained retrieval specialists.
“Stay right here,” Caleb ordered Sarah firmly. “Keep your head completely down.”
He moved silently towards the main workshop area, flawlessly blending into the deep shadows of the heavy machinery. Sarah clutched the heavy flare canister, her knuckles turning bone-white from the strain. She watched the glowing monitors in pure terror.
One of the men approached the front roller door with extreme caution. The other circled quietly around towards the smaller side entrance, the exact one Sarah had just come through minutes ago. Sarah watched on the monitor as the man at the side door raised a massive, heavy sledgehammer.
“Caleb!” she screamed frantically towards the dark workshop. “The side door! They’re breaking through!”
A deafening, terrifying crash echoed through the workshop as the heavy sledgehammer forcefully buckled the reinforced door inward. The intense impact tore the door from its metal hinges, filling the immediate area with a thick cloud of dust and splintered wood. The concussive noise was so loud Sarah instinctively dropped to the floor.
Her ears rang with a high-pitched whine, temporarily drowning out the raging storm outside. Thick dust and debris billowed heavily into the small back room from the main workshop area. She scrambled frantically backward into the far corner, clutching the canister Caleb had given her like a protective talisman, completely forgetting she needed the actual launcher to use it.
Through the disorienting ringing in her ears, she heard the distinct, heavy boom of Caleb’s tactical flare launcher, immediately followed by the chaotic, aggressive advance of the intruders. A brilliant white light illuminated the dusty shop as Caleb fired to disorient them.
“Clear right, moving left!” a harsh voice bellowed from deep inside the dusty, brilliantly lit smoke. It definitely wasn’t Caleb’s voice.
Sarah crawled desperately under the heavy oak desk Caleb used for his daily paperwork. She could barely see the doorway into the main shop from her low vantage point near the floorboards. A pair of heavy, black tactical boots stepped cautiously into view, moving deliberately through the thick haze.
Another deafening blast roared, an intense burst of blinding light completely flooding the highly confined space. The tactical boots jerked violently backward as the intruder was forcefully repelled and disoriented by the brilliant flash.
“Fall back! I can’t see! Get to cover!” one of the men yelled in sudden panic.
Caleb suddenly appeared in the doorway, moving quickly backward, launching brilliant, blinding flares to keep the men completely pinned down. He was limping slightly, his face contorted in obvious pain. He had been injured in the chaotic scuffle, gripping his left shoulder tightly as he moved.
“Sarah, move!” he roared, grabbing her securely by the back of her heavy coat and hauling her forcefully out from under the wooden desk. He shoved her discarded heavy baton firmly back into her shaking hand. “Don’t freeze on me now. Let’s go!”
He dragged her quickly towards the very back wall of the living quarters, right behind a tall stack of heavy tire crates. There was a clever false panel there, perfectly hidden behind a large, rolling tool rack. Caleb kicked it open forcefully, revealing the wet, freezing night air on the exact opposite side of the building from where the attackers had entered.
“Go! Run toward the old creek bed! Stay completely low!”