The Ghost Consigliere

CHAPTER 12: Infiltration Inside a Coffin

The grinding sound of a massive cargo truck’s tires against wet asphalt dominated the silence of the night on the outskirts of the Lower Sector. Rain poured hard, washing the remnants of pollution from the air of Saint-Bastian.

Inside the rear container of the truck, marked with fake plates, total darkness reigned. The only sound was the droning hum of a giant refrigeration unit blasting freezing air in every direction. The temperature inside had dropped to minus five degrees Celsius.

Amid rows of thick wooden crates packed with frozen slabs of beef, one crate looked slightly different. There was no slaughterhouse stamp on its surface.

Inside that narrow wooden box, Elias was shivering violently.

His lips had turned blue. His pale skin was now nearly as white as snow. Trapped in his wheelchair, he hugged knees he could no longer feel. Resting in his lap was a small emergency oxygen canister. He wore a thick parka, but the cold still felt like invisible needles piercing through the fabric and stabbing straight into his bones.

The cargo truck jolted over potholes, throwing Elias’s frail body lightly against the crate wall. He groaned soundlessly.

The black necrotic veins in his neck pulsed slowly, reacting to the extreme cold freezing his blood. But the temperature was not the worst torment. His lungs, damaged by the grenade blast days earlier, were tightening by force. Every breath felt like razor blades slicing through his throat.

An unbearable itch gathered in Elias’s chest. His body screamed to cough, to expel the fluid building inside his lungs.

Elias gritted his teeth. He shoved his right hand into his own mouth, then bit down on the flesh between his thumb and palm as hard as he could.

Hmphh... khhh!

Fresh blood seeped from the bite wound, warm and metallic on his tongue. The pure pain diverted his mind just enough to suppress the cough reflex at the exact moment the truck came to an abrupt stop.

Ciiit.

The truck’s air brakes hissed sharply.

Through a tiny crack in the wooden crate, Elias could hear faint voices outside.

“Meat shipment from Sector Four. Plate identification matches,” said a guard with a thick Russian accent over the intercom.

The sound of a massive steel gate being pulled open followed. The truck rolled forward again, this time descending a steep ramp, carrying Elias deep into the earth.

Into The Obsidian Vault.

Outside, thirty meters above ground level, Caleb and Sloane had just stepped out of a battered van parked behind an old meat-packing factory. Both wore dirty blue coveralls and carried metal toolboxes. Caleb had a cap pulled low to hide his single eye.

Acid rain soaked their shoulders. From the outside, the factory looked abandoned. Moss covered the brick walls, and graffiti scarred every surface. No guards were visible. But Sloane knew thermal cameras were tracking them from the rooftop.

“Walk normal. Don’t look down,” Caleb whispered beside her, his mouth barely moving. “I hacked the rooftop CCTV loop before we got out. On their security monitors, we don’t exist.”

Sloane said nothing. Her hand gripped the handle of her toolbox tightly. The bottom compartment had been modified to conceal a suppressed pistol and two bricks of C4. Her eyes swept the area with a soldier’s instincts.

“You sure that crippled kid can survive down there, Cal?” Sloane asked quietly as they approached the side door of the factory.

“He’s arrogant. Arrogant people usually prefer freezing to death over failing,” Caleb muttered, reaching into his coveralls for a forged access card. “We’ve got ten minutes before the vault guards downstairs notice something wrong with the local power grid. Once I give the signal, you cut the main cable in the panel room. Five seconds of darkness, and I’ll provide the first corpse for him.”

Sloane stared hard at Caleb. Her former teammate had never failed at deadly logistics.

She nodded. “Make sure nobody screams.”

Thirty meters below them, the cargo truck finally stopped.

The intercom crackled again, this time echoing through an enormous chamber.

“Loading bay secure. Open the rear doors.”

KLAAK. SREEEKKK!

The truck’s rear doors were pulled wide open. Blinding white fluorescent light pierced through the cracks in Elias’s crate.

Elias manually held his breath, biting deeper into his hand. Through the narrow slit, he saw four security guards in black uniforms, wearing Level IV ballistic vests and carrying P90 submachine guns. They were nothing like Dante’s street thugs. Their movements were tactical, efficient, disciplined.

“Move the first two crates to Storage Block A,” ordered one guard wearing a faded red beret.

A forklift rolled forward, its steel prongs raised level with the truck bed.

The forks slid beneath Elias’s crate. The violent jolt lifted his wheelchair for an instant. He slammed back down hard, and this time his cough reflex broke free.

Khhhh-ukk!

A muffled cough escaped Elias’s mouth. His heart nearly stopped.

Outside, the red-bereted guard suddenly raised a hand.

The forklift halted instantly.

Silence fell over the loading bay. Only the hum of the refrigeration unit remained.

The red-bereted guard rested a hand on the barrel of his P90. He walked slowly toward the crate where Elias hid. His boots echoed like a death countdown in Elias’s ears.

Elias’s eyes widened in the darkness.

He had made a fatal mistake in the first minute of the operation.

Cold sweat mixed with blood dripped from his lips. If the crate opened now, he would have no chance to possess anyone. He would simply be riddled with bullets and destroyed.

The guard now stood directly beside the crate. The Russian man’s face was inches from the wooden gap. Elias could even see his breath fogging in the cold air.

“There was a sound inside this meat crate,” the guard reported quietly into his radio. His finger tightened on the trigger. “Opening it now.”

Elias closed his eyes, preparing to unleash all his neural power blindly into the air, praying for a miracle.

At the exact second the guard pressed the muzzle of his gun against the wood...

Tit.

Static burst loudly from the mini earpiece in Elias’s ear.

“Now, Sloane!” Caleb shouted.

Suddenly, every fluorescent light in the loading bay died at once. The electrical hum vanished instantly.

Absolute darkness swallowed the underground chamber.

“Power outage! Activate night vision!” the red-bereted guard shouted, stepping back from Elias’s crate, his focus split by combat instinct and panic.

Upstairs, Caleb had executed his part perfectly.

Panicked footsteps rang out on the metal staircase connecting the control room to the loading bay. A guard assigned to watch the upper corridor ran through the dark.

Then came the sound of a brutal impact.

BRUUUK-KRAAKK!

“AAARRGH!”

The guard slipped, tumbling down a dozen metal steps. His body smashed into the concrete floor below with the sickening crack of a broken neck.

“Roman fell down the stairs! Medic, over here!” the red-bereted guard shouted, sprinting away from the cargo crates.

Inside the pitch-black freezer crate, Elias finally allowed himself to breathe.

The pain in his bitten hand meant nothing now.

Caleb’s bait tactic had worked.

Five seconds of darkness, and one stupid pawn had tripped over the thin wire Caleb had rigged across the stairs.

“The first actor is on stage, Elias,” Caleb whispered over the comms, his tone laced with sadistic satisfaction. “I’ve given the enemy panic. Now it’s your turn to play god. Destroy them.”

Elias wasted no time.

He closed his eyes, letting the black veins in his neck swell to their limit. A violent static signal shot from his cortex, pierced the wooden crate, tore through the freezing air, and slammed into the body of the guard named Roman, whose neck had just snapped at the foot of the metal stairs, twelve meters away.

Pure cold burned through Elias’s chest.

His mind connected instantly.

Death had changed hands.

In the dark corner of the room, as two Spetsnaz guards knelt to check their comrade’s pulse... Roman’s corpse slowly opened its eyes.