Chapter 10 - JUSTICE IN THE DARKThe angle grinder shrieked through the metal doors with deafening intensity, slicing clean through the locking bar. With a brutal kick from above, one of the heavy steel doors flew wide open, letting in the gray light of dusk and the silhouette of a tactical operative pointing an assault rifle down into the cellar.
"Got you—"
Before the operative could squeeze the trigger, Marcus fired twice upward from the shadows.
The rounds struck the man’s tactical vest, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing backward off the cellar steps with a muffled yell.
"Clear the pit! Flashbang out!" a voice roared from above.
A spherical metal canister bounced down the concrete steps, spinning toward Marcus’s feet, its fuse hissing violently with bright green sparks.
Marcus didn't try to run. He lunged forward, grabbed the sizzling flashbang off the ground with gloved hands, and hurled it straight back up through the open doorway.
BOOM!
The blinding flash and deafening concussive blast erupted right on the porch, sending the remaining operatives scrambling backward in total disorientation, screaming in pain as smoke billowed from the entrance.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Marcus scrambled backward through the low concrete drainage pipe, sliding through the cold, rushing mud until he burst out into the dense, overgrown brush of the ravine fifty yards away.
Waiting for him in the shadows of the tree line were Clara, Caleb, and Emma, breathing heavily but alive.
Clara held up the ruggedized laptop and the open ledger, her hands steady despite the cold night wind.
"We made it," she whispered, tears cutting clean paths through the soot on her face. "Now what?"
Marcus pulled out his personal burner phone from his inner tactical pocket—a secure, encrypted line connected directly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s internal anti-corruption division, completely bypassing the local precinct.
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He punched in the three-digit emergency override code, his eyes fixed on the burning outline of the suburban house in the distance, where sirens from federal agents—real ones—were finally screaming down the highway in the distance.
"Now," Marcus said into the phone, a cold, hard smile touching his lips as he watched Captain Vance emerge onto the front porch in handcuffs courtesy of the incoming federal task force, "we clean house."
