Chapter 11 - The Siege of the Fifth Avenue Citadel
The blast from the front courtyard shook the limestone foundations of the mansion to their core.
Plaster dust drifted down from the gilded cornices of the grand ceiling like fine grey snow.
The crystal prisms on the central chandelier chimed against one another in a frantic, ringing frenzy.
Through the shattered terrace glass, the acrid stench of burning diesel and pulverized brick poured into the library.
I shoved the heavy oak bookcase across the reinforced vault access panel on the floor.
Lucia had already ushered Sarah Carter and young Leo into the subterranean bunker beneath the foundations.
Emma stood at the threshold of the hidden steel hatch, her fingers locked around the iron handrail.
Her emerald silk gown was stained with grey soot at the hem.
Her eyes were wide with terror, reflecting the red emergency beacons pulsing along the wall.
“Dominic, do not stay up here alone,” she cried over the roar of another concussive blast.
“Kolov brought an army with him.”
“He wants to butcher you in your own halls.”
I stepped toward her, taking her cold hands into mine and pulling her firmly into the bunker entrance.
“This house was built by my grandfather sixty years ago, Emma.”
“Every wall is reinforced with ballistic steel plates.”
“Every hallway is a kill zone designed to funnel invaders into crossfires.”
“I am not trapped in here with Kolov.”
“Kolov and his men just entered their own graveyard.”
I looked down into the bunker where Leo was already tapping furiously on the auxiliary security terminal.
The nineteen-year-old boy looked up at me through the hatch, his jaw set with fierce determination.
“I have the closed-circuit camera feed routed to this monitor, Mister Castellano,” Leo shouted up.
“I can control the electronic fire shutters and magnetic pressure locks from down here.”
“Keep your family safe, Leo,” I instructed him with cold authority.
“If anyone attempts to breach the hatch, trigger the interior nitrogen suppression system.”
“Understood, sir,” Leo answered without a tremor in his voice.
Emma looked up at me one last time, her bruised lips parting in a silent plea.
I pressed the master override button on the steel frame.
The eight-inch pneumatic hatch slid shut with an airtight hiss, sealing them sixty feet below the ground.
I turned back toward the grand gallery, drawing my Kimber forty-five and racking the slide.
Marco was already kneeling behind an overturned marble console table at the top of the sweeping staircase.
He had an assault rifle resting against his shoulder, two extra magazines clamped to his tactical vest.
Six of our private security operators were positioned along the upper mezzanine balustrades.
Down in the entrance courtyard, the heavy oak double doors were blown off their hinges by a thermal shaped charge.
The massive doors collapsed inward onto the foyer floor, sending splinters of wood flying across the room.
Through the choking black smoke, six masked mercenaries in Kevlar body armor rushed into the foyer.
Their assault rifles were raised, spraying automatic fire across the ground-floor paintings and antique vases.
The deafening roar of thirty-caliber ammunition shredded the velvet draperies into rags.
I did not flinch from the noise.
I leaned over the mahogany banister and fired three measured rounds into the lead point man.
The heavy hollow-point slugs punched directly through his chest plate, dropping him instantly onto the marble.
Marco opened up with his suppressed rifle, delivering rapid, lethal double-taps into the two mercenaries behind him.
Both men collapsed into the rubble before their weapons could clear the doorway.
The remaining three invaders scrambled behind the grand marble pillars, returning fire with frantic bursts.
Rifle rounds chewed through the ornamental plaster, showering the mezzanine in blinding white dust.
Through the smoke at the front entrance stepped Viktor Kolov.
He was flanked by eight heavily armed personal bodyguards carrying military riot shields.
Kolov had an assault rifle slung across his chest and a scarred, victorious sneer stretching across his weathered face.
He looked up at the mezzanine through the haze, his dark eyes burning with manic triumph.
“Come down, Castellano!” Kolov’s booming voice reverberated off the stone walls.
“You hide on your balcony like a frightened prince while your empire burns around your ears!”
“Your sister is down there somewhere!”
“The little maid and her crippled brother are down there!”
“I am going to drag them out into Fifth Avenue and execute them on live television!”
I stepped into the open glare of the emergency lights at the center of the mezzanine.
I did not raise my weapon.
I simply stared down at him with eyes as dead and unyielding as winter ice.
“You talk too much for a man who is already surrounded, Viktor,” I said, my voice carrying clearly over the flames.
Kolov let out a harsh, mocking laugh that cut through the gunfire.
“Surrounded by what?” Kolov mocked, spreading his arms wide.
“My men control the street, your gates are destroyed, and your city commissioners have abandoned you!”
At that precise moment, the deafening scream of helicopter rotors descended directly over the estate roof.
Twin high-intensity tactical spotlights tore through the skylights above the grand foyer, bathing the room in daylight.
Through the shattered skylights descended four tactical intervention teams from the Port Authority Special Response Unit.
Simultaneously, the heavy steel security shutters over every window snapped shut, locking the entire ground floor in absolute isolation.
Young Leo had overridden the mansion’s hydraulic systems from the bunker console.
Kolov’s arrogant smile vanished from his face in a fraction of a second.
He spun around toward the entrance, only to find the blast doors sealed tight with six-inch hardened steel bolts.
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The hunter had just walked into the center of a steel trap.
And the exit had ceased to exist.
