Chapter 54
CHAPTER
We’d no sooner recovered from the shock of the blast than the wind shifted, intensified, and cleared away ribbons of fog. We saw many of Prince’s men racing through the construction equipment and piles of supplies toward the site of the explosion.
Sampson triggered his mic. “Chief, we just had a bomb go off at Davidsonville.”
“What? Repeat!”
Before John could, the wind blew another clear lane through the fog, revealing a heavily armed force of at least eight attackers in black hoods entering through a hole in the fence in the northwest corner of the complex.
They spread out behind a bulldozer and a dump truck and began firing at the LMC 51 gunmen, who released their dogs.
Pittman yelled, “Sampson, Cross, repeat!”
Over the flash and rattling of the small-arms fire and the pinging of bullets ricocheting, I triggered my mic, said, “Davidsonville site is under attack by armed men. Firefight in progress. Donovan is inside. Send reinforcements! Now!”
“Jesus Christ. Roger that!”
I put up my binoculars and got glimpses of the combat through the ribbons of fog, seeing the dogs race toward the attackers as if I were watching through a lazy strobe.
Three of the hooded men went to their knees, held up canisters, and waited until the Malinois were all but on them and sprayed the dogs with some kind of high-strength pepper spray.
The dogs fell down, screeching, whining, coughing, and pawing at their muzzles, and the emboldened attackers moved past the machines and piles of supplies in coordinated fashion, covering each other, firing when they could.
One gunman went down, and another was hit hard; LMC 51 reinforcements began pouring out of the open loading docks.
Carrying automatic weapons, Valentine Rodolpho and Patrice Prince appeared at the first dock’s door, the one closest to the Suburbans.
“They’re gonna try to make a run for it,” Sampson said. He spun around and grabbed one of our shotguns.
“What are we doing?” I said as I grabbed the other shotgun.
“You heard the chief. If they try to get out before the cavalry gets here, we’re supposed to stop them.”
“He said if Donovan was threatened.”
“She and everyone in there is under attack!”
He took off before I could reply. I followed, running along the spine of the high ground that paralleled the fence, heading toward the gate.
Inside the fence, gunfire was near constant, a full-on war in a porous fog.
Prince’s men were fighting ferociously and seemed to outnumber the gunmen of the attacking force. Even the gang leader and his limping cousin were forced to move away from the SUVs. They disappeared into the fog and joined the fray.
We reached the gate, now unguarded. Sampson was right, I decided. We needed to get to Donovan before the fight got to her.
Just as Sampson reached through the gap to raise the bar holding the gate shut, six more hooded attackers jumped out of the back of the eighteen-wheeler that had arrived before the explosion.
“It’s a Trojan Horse!” I yelled and pulled Sampson down. They opened fire as a group, sweeping their guns left to right, catching Prince, Rodolpho, and the rest of the attacking gunmen in a crossfire somewhere in the fog.