Chapter 55
CHAPTER
The six new attackers split up and sprinted past us into the swirling mist and the roaring gunfight.
Sampson jumped up when the second wave of attackers were out of sight, threw up the gate bar, and said, “Let’s get Donovan out of there.”
He pushed open the gates, crouched down, and sprinted toward the second of the two loading docks, and I was right behind him.
Bullets cracked through the air, slapped the pavement, and pinged off the Suburbans, forcing us to take cover behind them even as their windows shattered and safety glass rained down on us.
There was a lull in the shooting but not in the shouting.
I heard French, Spanish, and English. John and I eased ourselves up, looked through the blown-out windows of the nearby Suburban, and saw Prince darting up the stairs to the first of the three loading docks, Rodolpho covering him from the open dock door.
He shot two hooded attackers, who spun and fell.
I had the gang leader’s cousin square in my sights, but at seventy yards away, he was too far for me to hit with the shotgun or my pistol. Prince and his cousin disappeared into the warehouse.
The fog swirled. The gunfire to our north started once more, fiercer than ever.
“Let’s go in at another angle,” Sampson said. “Third bay. Wait. I’ll cover you.”
He hunched over and ran away from the vehicle and the gunfight and toward the rear of the semi. I took one more look in the direction of the gun battle.
Through the fog, I spotted a hooded attacker in full body armor clubbing the skull of one of Prince’s men with the butt of his weapon. When the man went down, he sprinted toward the open second loading dock.
Sampson whistled.
I ran to him, keeping low.
We climbed into the building, the gunfire outside now echoing behind us. In the far distance, the first sirens wailed.
Dodging pallets of concrete mix stacked on both sides of the inner dock, we went to a set of double doors and looked through a porthole window into a large, high-ceilinged space filled with towering steel shelves, some heavily loaded, some empty.
“We’ve got company in here,” I whispered. “Hooded dude went in the first dock chasing Prince and Rodolpho.”
“I think the cousins are going for Donovan,” Sampson said.
A figure sprinted toward us from the stacks. We both stepped back and to either side of the double doors.
When the man, one of Prince’s armed guards, barged through, he found the muzzles of two shotguns pressed to the back of his head.
“Police,” Sampson said. “Drop the gun.”
He dropped his weapon.
“Where’s the woman?” I said. “The one they just brought in here.”
He said nothing.
“Tell us,” Sampson said. “She’s a cop. If he kills her, you’ll go down for it too.”
The man answered in a thick Haitian accent, his voice shaking. “Other side of the warehouse. Prince’s office.”
“Who’s attacking?”
“No idea. Prince, he got many enemies.”
Sampson spun his shotgun and clipped the guy right behind the ear with the side of the stock, knocking him out cold. He dropped in his tracks.
“No time for niceties,” he said to me. He kicked open the double doors and entered the warehouse.