Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE AT THE CABINBy 11:00 AM the next morning, despite the doctor’s fierce objections, I was sitting in a wheelchair inside the concealed police mobile command unit parked three blocks from my father’s waterfront cabin on Ruston Way. Noah was safe under heavy guard at a undisclosed police safehouse in Seattle.
Rain lashed against the windows of the surveillance van. On the monitors, we had nine camera angles covering Dad’s cabin—a rustic two-story wooden house overlooking the gray, churning waters of Puget Sound.
Dad sat inside the cabin’s living room, visibly sitting under the warm yellow lamp light, reading a newspaper. To anyone watching through binoculars, he looked like a defenseless old man waiting for noon.
In reality, four SWAT snipers were perched in the treeline, and eight heavily armed officers were hidden inside the basement.
“Ten minutes to transfer time,” Detective Miller announced over the radio headset. “All units, stay cold. Do not trigger movement until suspect makes physical entry.”
My heart pounded against my strapped ribs. My phone sat on the table inside the cabin, programmed to automatically execute the bank code at 12:00 PM precisely.
11:53 AM.
Suddenly, the screen on Monitor 3 flickered with static.
“What’s that?” Miller snapped, leaning forward. “Camera 3 just lost feed.”
“Camera 2 is down! Camera 5 down!” the technician yelled. “Signal jammer! Someone’s popping a high-grade military jammer in the quadrant!”
“Snipers, do you have visual?” Miller shouted into her mic.
“Negative, Command!” a sniper’s voice crackled through radio static. “Heavy smoke blooming from the North side! I’ve lost line of sight on the front porch!”
My blood ran cold. “He’s not coming from the street!” I screamed, realizing it instantly. “The boat! The fishing boat!”
Before anyone could react, a massive explosion rocked the waterfront.
A flashbang detonated on the back deck of the cabin, blowing out the glass patio doors in a shower of lethal shrapnel.
On the surviving monitor, through the billowing gray smoke, a figure wearing a tactical raincoat and a ballistic mask kicked through the shattered frame, holding a silenced handgun.
Evan.
He didn’t hesitate. He raised the weapon and fired three rounds directly into the back of my father’s armchair.
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“DAD!” I shrieked, tearing off my heart monitor leads, trying to leap out of the wheelchair. Miller grabbed me, holding me down as chaos erupted over the radio.
“SUSPECT OPENED FIRE! SHOTS FIRED INSIDE THE RESIDENCE!”
