Chapter 4 - The Midnight Transfer
The police cruiser rattles violently down the dark, rain-slicked highway.
Hadrian sits frozen in the back, bracing his legs against the plastic partition.
The blinding headlights of the oncoming vehicle grow rapidly larger in the cracked windshield.
The corrupt police officer behind the wheel screams in panic, yanking the steering wheel hard to the right.
The massive armored SUV slams directly into the rear quarter panel of the police car.
The brutal impact sends the cruiser spinning out of control across the wet asphalt.
Hadrian braces himself as a shower of shattered glass rains down on his head.
The vehicle rolls twice before crashing violently into a deep, muddy drainage ditch.
Hadrian kicks out the broken rear window with his heavy combat boots and crawls out into the freezing rain.
A towering man in a black tactical suit steps out of the armored SUV.
It is his old commander, known in the underworld only by the callsign Viper.
Viper tosses a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters into the mud beside Hadrian.
"You look absolutely terrible for a dead man," Viper jokes grimly through the downpour.
Hadrian quickly snaps his handcuffs and grabs a loaded assault rifle from the back of the SUV.
"Where did she take my daughter?" he demands, his voice trembling with unchecked fury.
Viper pulls up a highly classified satellite feed on a rugged military tablet.
"She didn't take her to a hospital or a police safe house."
Viper points a gloved finger to a blinking red dot moving rapidly away from the city.
"She loaded the kid onto a private jet at the old industrial airstrip."
Hadrian checks the ammunition magazine of his rifle and racks the charging handle.
"Then we are going to shoot that plane out of the sky before it leaves the county."
They climb into the idling SUV, tires spinning wildly as they speed toward the airstrip.
They smash through the rusted chain-link fence just in time to see the jet engines roaring to life on the runway.
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Hadrian leans out of the passenger window, aiming his rifle at the jet's landing gear, but he suddenly freezes.
A massive, heavily armed mercenary steps onto the tarmac, holding a rocket launcher aimed directly at their windshield.
