Chapter 10 - THE PHANTOM CONVOY
|
The cold November wind whipped across Interstate 55 like a razor, carrying sheets of freezing drizzle across the empty asphalt.
At precisely six-fifty-five in the evening, three unmarked black SUVs and two heavy flatbed trucks pulled onto the shoulder near an abandoned weigh station.
Inside the lead SUV, Salvatore Bellini adjusted the collar of his mink-lined overcoat, his eyes scanning the highway with predatory eagerness.
Beside him, Dominic held a modified military-grade assault rifle across his knees.
“The GPS tracker from our inside informant says the Moretti armored transport just passed the Cicero Avenue exit, boss,” Dominic said, grinning through crooked teeth.
“Young Luca really thought he could sneak forty million in Swiss gold bars out of the city during a family crisis.”
Salvatore sneered, spitting out the window onto the frozen gravel.
“Vincenzo was a coward, and his son is an amateur.”
“Once we seize this bullion, we cut off Luca’s liquidity completely.”
“The other five families in the Commission won't back a boss who can't pay his soldiers on Friday morning.”
Headlights appeared in the distance, cutting through the dense fog like two golden spears.
A heavy, steel-plated armored transport truck rumbled down the highway, flanked by two black sedans bearing the Moretti crest.
“Block the lanes!” Salvatore ordered, his voice crackling over the tactical radio.
The three SUVs lurched forward, skidding horizontally across the three highway lanes, creating an impassable barrier of steel and flashing hazard lights.
The armored truck slammed on its air brakes with an ear-splitting screech, stopping forty yards short of the blockade.
Dozens of Bellini gunmen poured out of the vehicles, weapons raised, surrounding the transport in a textbook tactical encirclement.
“Step out with your hands on your heads!” Dominic screamed through a megaphone, his rifle trained on the reinforced driver’s window.
The driver’s door swung open slowly.
A single man stepped down onto the asphalt, wearing a high-visibility security jacket.
He didn't raise his hands; instead, he casually lit a cigarette and tossed a clipboard onto the hood of Salvatore’s SUV.
Salvatore stepped out of the vehicle, his face twisted in sudden suspicion.
“Where is Luca?” Salvatore demanded, stepping forward with his silver-plated revolver drawn.
“Where is the gold?”
The driver took a slow drag of his cigarette, exhaling smoke into the freezing night air.
“There is no gold, Mr. Bellini.”
“I work for the Illinois Department of Transportation.”
“Mr. Moretti paid our company fifty thousand dollars to drive an empty concrete-testing rig up and down I-55 for three hours.”
Salvatore froze, his blood running colder than the freezing rain soaking through his hair.
“What did you say?” he choked out.
Before the driver could answer, Dominic’s satellite phone rang with frantic, screaming urgency.
Dominic answered, his face draining of all color within two seconds.
“Boss... it’s Lake Forest,” Dominic stammered, his weapon trembling in his hands.
“Luca Moretti didn't go to the docks.”
“He took fifty men straight into our family compound twenty minutes ago.”
“The guards surrendered without firing a shot.”
“They have the servers, they have your private vault, and the State Police are raiding the port terminals right behind them!”
Salvatore dropped his revolver onto the wet pavement, the cold reality crushing his chest like a hydraulic press.
“Turn the cars around!” Salvatore roared, clawing at Dominic’s jacket in sheer terror.
May you like
“Get back to the city right now!”
But as the Bellini gunmen scrambled toward their SUVs, a dozen tactical police cruisers and federal law enforcement vans emerged from the highway ramps, their sirens wailing like the horns of judgment.
