Chapter 9 - The Mill on the Hudson
The old Yonkers textile mill loomed against the gray Hudson River like a rotting black ribcage.
Constructed in the late nineteenth century from red industrial brick and rusted structural iron, the sprawling complex appeared abandoned from the street. Plywood covered the lower windows, weeds grew three feet high through cracked asphalt, and a rusted chain-link fence bore faded signs warning of industrial toxicity.
It was the perfect camouflage for a multi-million-dollar bio-research facility.
The Cadillac Escalade barreled through the rusted outer gate without slowing down, shattering the padlock and iron chain in an explosive spray of sparks.
Daniel slammed the brakes, spinning the heavy SUV across the gravel courtyard and coming to a halt directly before the heavy corrugated steel loading bay doors.
Before the dust could settle, four guards in black tactical uniforms emerged from the guard shack near the river wall, raising submachine guns.
Matteo didn't wait.
He kicked the passenger door open, stepped out into the pouring rain, and raised a customized Benelli M4 tactical shotgun.
*BOOM.*
The heavy slug blew through the windshield of the guard shack, dropping the first shooter instantly. Matteo racked the bolt with fluid, terrifying speed, firing three consecutive rounds of heavy buckshot that shredded the corrugated wall and eliminated the remaining sentries before they could establish a defensive perimeter.
Behind them, the low rumble of forty approaching engines shook the ground.
Convoys of black sedans, pickup trucks, and armored transport vans surged through the shattered gates, pouring onto the mill’s property. Men in heavy leather jackets and tactical vests spilled out of the vehicles by the dozens, armed with rifles, shotguns, and crowbars.
Frankie Donahue strode up through the rain, an automatic combat shotgun resting on his broad shoulder, his eyes wide as he looked at the massive complex.
“What is this place, boss?” Frankie growled, spitting into the gravel.
“A slaughterhouse,” Matteo said, slapping a fresh drum of shells into his weapon. “The lower five levels are reinforced concrete. There are armed contractors inside, military grade. They have orders to destroy the data and purge the facility if breached. We don't let anyone leave.”
“And the target?”
“Arthur Vance,” Matteo said, his voice cutting through the roar of the rain. “He stays alive until I get what I need. Everyone else is fertilizer.”
Frankie grinned, a vicious, jagged smile that showed two gold teeth. He turned to the seventy armed men standing behind him in the downpour.
“You heard the boss!” Frankie roared. “Blow the doors!”
Two soldiers sprinted forward with industrial acetylene torches and hydraulic spreaders. Within ninety seconds, the heavy steel loading bay doors were peeled backward like tin foil.
Matteo led the breach himself.
The interior of the mill was a nightmare of contrasting worlds. Beyond the derelict brick exterior lay a pristine, sterile subterranean bunker constructed of brushed steel, bulletproof glass, and glaring halogen lights.
Sirens wailed in piercing, synchronized rhythm throughout the facility.
*“SECURITY BREACH—LEVEL ONE. AUTOMATED PROTOCOL ENGAGED.”*
Automated ceiling turrets dropped from the steel corridors, their twin barrels tracking the entryway.
“Down!” Matteo shouted, pulling Frankie behind a reinforced steel support pillar just as a hail of high-caliber rounds tore through the entryway, shredding two Bellini soldiers who were slow to react.
Matteo leaned around the pillar, pulling a thermite canister from his tactical belt. He pulled the pin with his teeth, hurled the grenade with pinpoint accuracy down the corridor, and watched as it landed directly beneath the turret housing.
A blinding flare of white-hot magnesium erupted, melting the mechanized housing into a puddle of slag within three seconds.
“Move!” Matteo bellowed.
The Bellini syndicate surged downward through the stairwells like an unstoppable black tide.
It was not a surgical raid. It was an extermination.
For every corridor defended by Vance’s private military contractors, Matteo countered with overwhelming, savage brutality. His men threw fragmentation grenades through ventilation ducts, blew down security airlocks with commercial breaching charges, and engaged in close-quarters firefights that filled the sterile corridors with smoke, screams, and shattered reinforced glass.
Matteo fought like a man possessed by demons.
His wounded left shoulder was screaming in agony, his face was smeared with soot and blood, but his aim never wavered. Every operative who raised a weapon in his path was met with instantaneous, lethal force. He moved through the third and fourth sub-basements with the ruthless precision of a machine engineered for total destruction.
On the fifth level, deep within the bedrock beneath the river, the air grew freezing cold.
The walls here were lined with cryogenic tanks, glowing with faint blue bioluminescence. Inside the massive glass cylinders, rows of microscopic embryonic canisters were suspended in bubbling liquid nitrogen—thousands of custom genetic iterations waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.
Standing at the far end of the central laboratory, behind a blast-resistant polycarbonate wall, was Dr. Arthur Vance.
The old man was seventy-five years old, impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit beneath a pristine white laboratory coat. He was calmly entering a sequence of commands into a central terminal, watching a digital progress bar track across three oversized monitors:
**DATA PURGE INITIATED: 84% COMPLETE**
**CRYOGENIC SYSTEM VENTING: 60 SECONDS TO CORE DRAIN**
Standing on either side of Vance were his two personal bodyguards, armed with high-powered assault rifles.
Beside the terminal, sitting on a refrigerated stainless steel tray, was a small, foam-lined aluminum case.
Inside the case rested two glass ampoules filled with a golden, amber-colored liquid.
May you like
The stabilizing enzyme.
***
