Chapter 8 - The Cold Breach
At 2:00 AM on Monday, the Chicago meatpacking district was wrapped in a blanket of thick gray smog.
The Moretti stronghold was illuminated by heavy floodlights mounted along the high concrete walls. Armed guards walked the perimeter with guard dogs, their breath fogging in the freezing night air.
Inside the central control room, Dominic Moretti—a fat, balding man in his late fifties—was pacing back and forth, holding a glass of cognac.
“Where is Vale?” Dominic growled into his radio. “Why hasn't he hit the front gates yet?”
“No movement on the street, boss,” his captain replied over the comms. “Everything is quiet.”
Two blocks away, beneath the frozen asphalt, Mara Sullivan stood inside a massive municipal drainage culvert that ran directly beneath the abattoir’s central ammonia cooling facility.
She was accompanied by Adrian and four elite tactical mercenaries Adrian had hired from an international private security firm.
Mara carried a heavy thermite torch assembly on her back.
“Ammonia line is four inches of reinforced steel,” Mara whispered, pointing her tactical flashlight up at the overhead pipes. “If we ignite this joint, the entire ventilation system on the ground floor fills with high-density anhydrous ammonia gas within ninety seconds.”
“Will it blow?” Adrian asked, checking his sidearm.
“Not if I control the temperature,” Mara replied, striking the igniter on her torch. “It won't kill them. But it will make every man on the ground floor feel like their lungs are filling with liquid fire. They’ll run out the back fire doors right into your perimeter team.”
She pressed the white-hot thermite cone against the steel pipe joint.
Bright green sparks showered down onto her heavy canvas coat. Mara didn't flinch. She held the torch steady, her thick shoulder muscles locked like iron bands, driving the heat deeper into the metal.
HISSSSSSS!
A deafening roar of pressurized gas erupted through the pipe.
High above, inside the meatpacking plant, emergency alarms began shrieking wildly as thick, white clouds of blinding ammonia gas surged through the ventilation shafts.
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Panicked screams echoed down from the processing floor as eighty Moretti gunmen began coughing, choking, and dropping their weapons, scrambling blindly toward the rear exits.
“Breach in five seconds!” Mara called out, setting the torch down and grabbing her heavy tactical sledgehammer. “Follow the wind!”
