Chapter 4 - Lead and Linoleum
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"Get down!" Enzo roared.
Before Jade could even squeeze the trigger on the doorway, Enzo vaulted clean over the diner counter—moving with terrifying athleticism for a man in a three-piece suit—and tackled her flat behind the heavy cast-iron base of the commercial walk-in refrigerator just as the plate-glass front windows of The Rusty Anchor exploded inward under a hail of 7.62mm automatic gunfire!
Neon tubes shattered in showers of white sparks. Ceramic coffee mugs, glass pie domes, and chrome napkin holders disintegrated into flying shrapnel as fifty rounds raked the counter and booths from end to end.
Outside on the wet street, heavy gunfire erupted in return—Rocco and two guards from Enzo’s backup SUV, which had just pulled around the corner, engaging the Russian hit squad from behind the cover of Enzo’s armored Escalade.
Beneath the screaming hail of bullets chewing through the drywall above their heads, Enzo’s heavy body shielded Jade completely on the greasy kitchen tiles. He smelled of rain, cordovan leather, and cold sandalwood, his broad chest pressing hers flat against the floor as he drew a matte-black SIG Sauer P226 from his shoulder holster with his right hand and tossed a compact backup Glock 43 from his ankle rig into her palm.
"Real bullets in that one," Enzo growled against her ear over the deafening roar of rifle fire in the street. "Two coming through the back alley door right now—take the left, I’ve got the right!"
Jade didn't freeze, and she didn't panic.
As the metal service door at the back of the kitchen blew open under the boot of two Russian mercenaries wearing night-vision goggles, Jade rolled up onto one knee beside the stainless-steel prep island, braced her left wrist under her right, and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession—at the exact same fraction of a second Enzo fired from the floor beside her.
BANG-BANG! BANG-BANG!
Four rounds, four center-mass hits above the plate carriers. Both Russian breachers slammed backward into the alley dumpsters and went still.
"Move!" Enzo barked, surging to his feet and catching Jade by the elbow—not rough like Rocco had, but firm and tactical—as three more gunmen from the front street tossed a military smoke grenade through the shattered front window and stormed over the counter into the smoke-filled dining room.
Instead of running out the back alley door into the crossfire where a third Russian vehicle could be waiting, Enzo kicked open the heavy wooden trapdoor behind the pantry shelves that led down into the building’s shared nineteenth-century coal cellar and storm-drain network—a layout he knew because his family owned the mortgage on every commercial block in South Boston.
"Down!" Enzo shoved her ahead of him down the steep wooden steps, firing three blind suppressive rounds through the swirling grey smoke of the kitchen to drop the lead Russian coming around the grill before pulling the heavy iron cellar bolt shut from the underside and wedging a steel crowbar through the hasp!
rat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets hammered into the thick oak planks above their heads as they sprinted through the low-ceilinged brick cellar, emerging thirty yards down the block through an iron sidewalk freight grate inside a locked maritime machine shop owned by the Moretti dockworkers' union.
Waiting inside the dark warehouse bay with its engine purring was Enzo’s armored black Escalade, pulled inside out of the rain by his driver while Rocco—his scalded right hand wrapped in a bloody handkerchief—covered the rolling steel bay door with an M4 carbine.
"Get in the back!" Enzo ordered, opening the heavy ballistic door of the Escalade and pushing Jade onto the black leather bench seat before sliding in beside her and slamming the door shut. "Drive, Luca! Take the lower tunnel to the Charlestown pier compound!"
The six-ton armored SUV shot out the rear alley exit of the machine shop, tires screaming against the rain-slicked cobblestones as they vanished into the dark maze of the South Boston waterfront before the first Boston PD sirens even reached the diner four blocks back.
Inside the warm, dimly lit leather cabin, Jade sat pressed against the far door, chest heaving, the smoking Glock 43 still clutched in her white-knuckled fist.
Across the seat, Enzo pulled a clean linen handkerchief from his breast pocket, leaned across the console, and without asking permission, pressed the soft cloth gently against the side of her neck where a flying shard of Pyrex from the diner counter had sliced a two-inch cut below her jaw.
Jade flinched, bringing the barrel of the Glock up until it pressed squarely against Enzo’s ribs beneath his unbuttoned coat.
"Don't touch me," she breathed fiercely.
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Enzo didn't pull his hand back, and he didn't look down at the gun pressed against his ribs. His slate-gray eyes held hers in the passing amber glow of the tunnel lights.
"You just shot two of Viktor Volkov’s best Spetsnaz contractors between the eyes in the dark without missing a beat, Anya," Enzo murmured softly, dabbing the blood from her throat. "Your diner is shot to pieces, your apartment on Dorchester Ave is probably already crawling with Russian cleaners, and by six a.m. every cop in Suffolk County will be looking for the waitress on that security tape. Where exactly do you think you’re going without me?"
