Chapter 13 - The Ambush in the Shadows
Heavy tactical boots thundered across the floorboards directly above our heads.
"They're downstairs! Check the boiler room!" a harsh, unfamiliar voice barked from the top of the rectory stairs.
Pastor Javier immediately switched off his red flashlight, plunging the coal cellar into total darkness. My pulse thudded in my throat so loudly I was certain the men upstairs could hear it. Ryan reached out blindly, grabbing my arm and pulling me behind the thick limestone doorframe of the old coal vault.
"How many are there?" I whispered, barely moving my lips.
"Sounded like at least four," Ryan answered in a breath. "They're armed. Thorne knew Diane would crack, so he had the church watched."
Through the cracked doorway, we watched two powerful flashlight beams sweep across the basement floor. Two men in black tactical gear descended the wooden stairs, holding compact semi-automatic rifles with suppressed barrels. These were not street thugs with crowbars like the ones Diane had hired; these were highly trained private contractors.
"Check the corners," one of the men muttered, his voice filtered through a tactical comm headset. "Vance wants the hard drives recovered and zero witnesses left behind."
Pastor Javier reached out in the dark, his hand finding the rusted emergency cutoff lever for the main steam boiler that heated the adjacent sanctuary. He looked at Ryan, his silhouette barely visible in the faint ambient light filtering through the basement grate.
Javier mouthed three words: "When it blows."
With all the strength in his broad shoulders, the pastor yanked the rusted iron valve downward.
A deafening, ear-piercing shriek of high-pressure steam erupted from the safety relief pipe, filling the entire basement with an impenetrable, blinding cloud of boiling white vapor.
The two armed men shouted in shock, their vision instantly obscured as the scalding moisture triggered the building's commercial fire alarms. Ear-splitting sirens began to wail, flashing strobe lights slicing through the fog.
"Move!" Ryan roared, grabbing the Pelican case with one hand and hauling me forward.
We burst out of the coal cellar into the blinding fog. One of the contractors turned toward the sound of our footsteps, raising his weapon, but Ryan drove his shoulder into the man's chest with crushing force, sending him crashing into the cast-iron furnace. The contractor's rifle clattered across the wet concrete.
Pastor Javier grabbed a heavy steel pipe wrench from a workbench and swung it into the knee of the second gunman, dropping him to the floor with a howl of agony.
"The choir passage!" Javier yelled over the screaming sirens. "It connects to the main sanctuary!"
We scrambled through a narrow maintenance tunnel that bypassed the rectory stairs, emerging through a concealed doorway directly behind the church altar. The vast, cavernous sanctuary was dark, illuminated only by the red and blue emergency strobes reflecting through the stained-glass windows.
Behind us, a third gunman burst through the chancel doors, leveling his rifle directly at my back.
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Before he could pull the trigger, Pastor Javier grabbed the massive bronze processional crucifix from its mounting bracket and hurled it like a javelin. The heavy metal cross struck the gunman squarely in the chest, knocking him backward through the heavy wooden doors.
"Run to the street!" Javier commanded, barring the double doors behind us with a heavy oak pew. "I will ring the bell! In this town, the church bell brings every volunteer firefighter in the county!"
