Chapter 5 - The Ambush at the Rail Bridge
The four black Suburbans did not move.
Matteo sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, holding an encrypted satellite radio, watching the rearview mirror with the grim, mechanical vigilance of a soldier who had spent eight months watching his commander unravel into madness.
When Lorenzo stepped out of the clinic through the glass doors, he did not walk with his usual predatory stride.
He moved like a man who had taken three shrapnel charges to the chest: shoulders slouched, his jacket hanging loose, his eyes fixed on the empty sidewalk where Vivian’s footprints had already dried in the midday sun.
"Boss," Matteo said, opening the rear door of the vehicle as Lorenzo approached the curb. "We have a situation on the state line."
Lorenzo didn't get into the car. He stood on the asphalt, his hands buried deep in his pockets, staring down the tree-lined avenue toward the river.
"What situation?" Lorenzo murmured, his voice dead.
"Silvio Moretti didn't bleed out alone in Bayonne," Matteo reported, lowering his voice into a sharp, urgent whisper. "His younger brother, Dante, returned from Sicily three days ago. He didn't go to New York. He didn't go to the Commission. He hired forty mercenaries from the Montreal port syndicates. They’ve been tracking our transponders since we crossed the Delaware Water Gap."
Lorenzo’s head snapped up.
The hollow, defeated numbness on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by that terrifying, homicidal fire that had earned him the title of the Ghost of Brooklyn.
"Where are they?" Lorenzo snarled.
"Two scout sedans were spotted at the junction of Route 119 ten minutes ago," Matteo said, pointing toward the southern ridge where the old rail bridge crossed the river gorge. "Boss... they didn't follow us to hit your convoy. They saw Vivian walk out of that clinic. They know who she is."
BOOM.
A concussive, deafening explosion ripped through the valley half a mile south, rattling the plate-glass storefronts of Main Street.
A towering column of black diesel smoke and orange flame billowed into the sapphire sky above the historic iron rail bridge that led to the county hospital.
Vivian’s walking route.
Lorenzo didn't speak.
He didn't draw breath.
He reached inside the front passenger door of the Suburban, tore a tactical semi-automatic shotgun from the retention rack behind the seat, racked the heavy steel slide with a concussive CLACK, and leapt behind the steering wheel of the lead vehicle, shoving the driver out onto the pavement.
"ALL UNITS!" Lorenzo roared into the tactical radio, slamming the transmission into drive, his tires screaming against the asphalt, leaving thick black rubber marks across the quiet street.
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"ENGAGE! KILL EVERY MAN ON THAT BRIDGE! KILL THEM ALL!"
The four five-ton armored vehicles surged forward in a synchronized, roaring formation, their twin-turbo V8 engines shaking the brick foundations of Blackwood as they accelerated toward the river gorge at ninety miles per hour.
