Chapter 5 - The Visitors
Maya’s eyes darkened. "Who sent them?"
"They didn't give names," Sal replied. "The guy in charge called himself 'Vance’s former employer.' He asked if a woman matching your description had been in the gym. I played dumb. Told him we get hundreds of walk-in fighters every week and I don't keep records."
"Did they believe you?"
"No," Sal said grimly. "They left a card on my desk. And then they dropped a threat. They said if I didn't give them your address by midnight tonight, they’d burn The Iron Vault to the ground with everyone inside it."
Maya stood up from the table, her movement sharp and decisive. She walked to the window, pulling the edge of the blind back an inch to scan the street three floors below.
"They didn't follow you here, did they?" she asked.
"I took three different bus routes and walked through two alleyways before coming up the fire escape," Sal said defensively. "I spent four years in Vietnam, Maya. I know how to check my six."
"They don't use foot trackers anymore, Sal," Maya said, her eyes scanning the rooftops across the street. "They use regional mobile towers and thermal surveillance."
Suddenly, the streetlights outside Maya's window flickered once, then went completely dark.
The electric clock on her kitchen counter turned off.
The entire block had been dropped into a sudden, localized power blackout.
"Sal," Maya said calmly, stepping back from the window into the deep shadows of the hallway. "They were already following you."
Down on the street, two heavy black SUVs turned slowly around the corner, their headlights off, moving like silent shadows against the wet pavement.
Sal stood up, his face pale. "Maya... I swear to God, I didn't see them—"
"Quiet," Maya ordered softly, pulling her tactical knife from the grease rag and slipping it into her sleeve. "They aren't here to talk. If they dropped the grid, this is a sweep-and-clear operation."
"What do we do?" Sal whispered, reaching into his pocket for his old snub-nosed revolver.
May you like
Maya looked at the seventy-two-year-old man standing beside her. For three years, Sal had provided a sanctuary for broken men and lost fighters in Chicago. She was not going to let him die in her hallway.
"You're going to stay behind me," Maya said, her voice dropping into the icy, command-line authority of the 9th Task Force. "And you're going to let me do what I was built to do."
