Chapter 7 - THE HUNTED
Panic in the executive suite of Vance Heritage Shipyard was instantaneous.
Julian stormed out of the building into the pouring rain, his black silk tie torn open at the collar, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his car keys twice onto the wet asphalt of the executive parking lot.
Chloe ran behind him, her high heels clicking loudly against the pavement, her face distorted with terror.
"Julian! Wait! Was that... was that Valerie?" she screamed over the sound of the storm. "How is she alive? You said you saw the car go under! You said the door was jammed!"
"Shut up!" Julian spat, turning on her with a look of frantic, animal rage that made her flinch backward. "Shut your mouth, Chloe!"
He snatched his keys from the ground, unlocked his Mercedes sedan, and threw himself into the driver's seat.
Chloe scrambled into the passenger side, pulling her wet coat around her shivering body. "Where are we going? We have to go to Marcus! He has security guards at his estate!"
"Marcus is finished!" Julian yelled, slamming his hand against the steering wheel as he gunned the engine out onto the street. "Did you see those documents on the screen? That was the original naval audit from fifteen years ago! If the Department of Justice sees those files, Marcus is going to spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary! And we're going with him!"
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, pressing speed-dial while weaving aggressively through the afternoon traffic on Interstate 64.
"Pick up... pick up, you bastard..." Julian muttered through gritted teeth.
The line clicked open.
"Julian," Marcus’s voice rasped through the speaker, sounding old, broken, and terrified. "Where are you?"
"Where are the backup servers?" Julian demanded, driving eighty miles an hour down the rain-slicked highway. "The hard drives with the asset deeds! Where are they?"
"In the vault at the safehouse," Marcus whispered. "The estate in Williamsburg. But Julian... the police just called my office. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has issued a freeze order on all our corporate accounts. They’re executing a search warrant on the shipyard right now."
Julian slammed his foot on the accelerator. "Get to Williamsburg! Now!"
He hung up the phone, threw it onto the dashboard, and glanced into his rear view mirror.
A quarter-mile behind them on the highway, a sleek, matte-black Ford F-250 pickup truck with dark tinted windows and a heavy steel brush guard was maintaining a steady, precise distance behind his sedan.
Julian frowned, his eyes tracking the black truck through the heavy rain.
"Is that truck following us?" Chloe asked, turning around in her seat, her eyes wide with rising panic.
"No," Julian muttered, trying to reassure himself. "It's just traffic."
He took the exit ramp for Route 199 toward Williamsburg, taking three sharp, consecutive turns through a quiet industrial park to test the vehicle behind him.
The black truck took every single turn, staying exactly three hundred yards behind them, moving like a phantom through the grey sheets of rain.
Julian’s heart began to hammer against his ribs. He stepped on the gas, the Mercedes engine roaring as it surged down a narrow, two-lane country road bordered by thick pine forests on both sides.
"Julian, he's speeding up!" Chloe shrieked, looking back.
The black truck had accelerated, closing the distance between them in seconds—two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty yards.
Through the rain-streaked windshield of the truck, Julian looked into the driver's side.
Sitting behind the wheel, his hands holding the leather steering grip with relaxed, effortless control, was Mason Vance.
He was wearing a black tactical jacket. His face was calm, his gray eyes fixed on Julian’s rear bumper with a terrifying, predator-like focus.
Beside him in the passenger seat sat Valerie, holding a dark touchscreen tablet that was relaying real-time telemetry from Julian’s vehicle.
"Mason!" Julian gasped, his breath catching in his throat as if he had been punched in the stomach. "He's... he's driving... HE'S STANDING UP!"
"He can't be!" Chloe screamed, hyperventilating in the passenger seat, holding her pregnant belly. "He was in a wheelchair! He's been in a wheelchair since he was twelve!"
The black truck didn't slow down.
It surged forward, its massive steel front bumper slamming into the rear driver's side quarter-panel of the Mercedes with a deafening CRASH of tearing metal and shattering taillights.
The sedan fishtailed violently across the slick asphalt. Julian screamed, wrestling with the steering wheel as the car spun twice, smashed through a wooden fence, and came to a bone-jarring halt in a muddy ditch at the edge of the woods.
The engine died with a hiss of steam from the shattered radiator.
Silence fell over the road, broken only by the heavy pounding of the rain against the roof.
Julian sat in the driver's seat, his air bag deployed, his nose bleeding from the impact. Beside him, Chloe was weeping uncontrollably, holding her face in her hands.
Through the rain-streaked side window, Julian watched the black truck come to a smooth stop twenty feet away.
The driver's side door opened.
Mason Vance stepped out into the rain.
He walked toward the ruined Mercedes with a slow, powerful, unhurried stride, his boots sinking smoothly into the mud, his posture towering, erect, and filled with fifteen years of silent, dormant fury.
He pulled a heavy steel crowbar from the back of his truck as he walked.
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Julian stared through the glass at his brother-in-law, his mind completely shattering under the weight of the impossible reality unfolding before his eyes.
"No..." Julian whimpered, scrambling frantically toward the passenger door. "No, no, please... God, no..."
