Chapter 20 - The man in the headlights
The storm had turned the rural backroads south of Chicago into ribbons of black glass. Rain drummed against the cracked windshield of the old pickup truck with an unrelenting, rhythmic fury.
Inside the cab, the heater blew lukewarm air that smelled of old dust and motor oil. Alina sat quietly in the back, using a torn strip of clean linen from Frank’s first-aid kit to bind the wound on Vincent’s arm. Her hands were gentle, but her touch was trembling.
"You lost a lot of blood," she whispered, leaning close to his shoulder.
"It will hold until morning," Vincent replied, his jaw tight as he endured the sting of the makeshift bandage. He reached into his coat and handed a small bottle of water back to her. "Drink. Both of you."
Mia took a small sip from the bottle, sitting quietly with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked exhausted, her hazel eyes heavy with sleep, yet she still clutched her wooden truck as if it were a shield against the dark world outside.
"Frank," Vincent said, watching the narrow beam of their headlights cut through the dense midnight fog. "Where are we?"
"Ten miles outside of Peotone," Frank answered, squinting through the downpour. "Old agricultural roads. No cameras, no toll booths, no state patrol. If we stay on this grid, we hit the private airstrip in Kankakee by four-thirty. My contact has a twin-engine Cessna ready to put us in Tennessee before dawn."
"Good," Vincent muttered, staring down at the olive-drab footlocker wedged between his feet. "Once we're in Tennessee, we leak the journals to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Department of Internal Affairs simultaneously. Vance won't have time to burn the evidence."
Suddenly, the headlights of the pickup truck flickered and dimmed.
Frank frowned, tapping the dashboard. "What the hell? Alternator gauge is dropping."
Before Frank could downshift, the truck’s engine sputtered violently, coughed twice, and completely died. The power steering locked up, and the heavy pickup coasted onto the muddy shoulder of the two-lane road, surrounded on both sides by towering, dead cornfields that swayed like phantoms in the gale.
"Did we run out of fuel?" Vincent asked, his hand dropping instantly to the heavy revolver on his hip.
"No," Frank said, his voice dropping into utter horror as he looked at the instrument cluster. "The electronics didn't fail. They were fried. Boss... an EMP burst."
Before the words had fully left Frank's mouth, the pitch-black road fifty yards ahead of them was obliterated by a wall of blinding, surgical white light.
Four massive, unmarked black tactical SUVs suddenly switched on roof-mounted high-intensity light bars, illuminating the truck and the surrounding cornfields as bright as noon. The pickup was completely pinned between the muddy ditch and an impenetrable barricade of reinforced steel.
From the tree line behind them, two more vehicles rolled into position, cutting off any possibility of retreat.
"Don't move," Vincent ordered through clenched teeth, raising his weapon as he placed his uninjured arm across Alina and Mia in the backseat. "Nobody leaves this cab."
The heavy armored doors of the lead SUV opened.
Dozens of laser sights—crimson, emerald, and violet—danced across the cracked windshield of the pickup truck, painting lethal targets across Vincent’s chest, Frank’s forehead, and the passenger windows.
Then, a single figure stepped out from the lead vehicle into the pouring rain.
He did not wear tactical gear. He wore a pristine, bespoke dark gray three-piece wool suit, polished Italian leather shoes that stepped deliberately into the mud, and an expensive fedora tilted slightly over his brow. In his right hand, he carried an umbrella. In his left hand, he held a lit cigarette, the red ember glowing through the mist.
The man walked slowly toward the truck, completely unbothered by the rain, until he stood barely ten feet from Vincent's door.
He tipped his fedora up with two fingers.
In the backseat, Alina caught a glimpse of the man’s face through the rain-streaked window.
A scream tore from her throat—a sound of such sheer, unadulterated, soul-shattering horror that it made Vincent's blood run cold. She scrambled backward against the rear glass, her hands clawing at her face, her eyes wide with total madness.
"No... no, no, no!" Alina shrieked, hyperventilating violently. "It can't be! God forgive us, it can't be him!"
Vincent stared through the side window, his mind reeling as he looked at the man’s face under the brilliant white glare of the spotlights.
The sharp jawline. The crooked nose broken in an old street brawl. The distinctive jagged scar slicing through the left eyebrow.
It was Marco Delgado.
The husband Alina had wept over. The loyal driver whose funeral Vincent had paid for. The man whose dog tag sat in Vincent’s pocket, and whose voice had spoken to them from the grave just hours before.
Marco Delgado stood in the pouring rain, alive, breathing, and looking down at Vincent with cold, dead eyes that showed neither remorse nor recognition.
May you like
He took a slow drag from his cigarette, exhaled a thick cloud of smoke into the rain, and tapped on Vincent’s window with the barrel of a polished chrome pistol.
"Open the door, Vincent," Marco said, his voice chillingly smooth through the glass. "You have something that belongs to my employers. And I’ve come to collect my wife."
