Chapter 1: Engine of Justice

Chapter 1: Engine of Justice

The siren died with a final, wheezing gasp as the ambulance swung onto Oak Creek Lane. To Alex Ryder, it was an alien sound in a place like this—a manicured slice of suburban heaven where the only emergencies were usually a poorly grilled steak or a misplaced HOA violation notice. Neat houses with identical lawns sat behind pristine white picket fences. It was the kind of street that choked on its own quiet contentment.

His partner, Dave, grunted from the driver’s seat. “Dispatch said fall with possible hip fracture. Elderly female, bariatric. Access notes say tight driveway.”

Alex was already scanning the addresses, his eyes, sharp and tired, missing nothing. “Tight is one thing. Blocked is another.” He pointed through the windshield. Up ahead, a gleaming, chrome-drenched pickup truck—the kind of vehicle that had never seen a speck of mud—was parked squarely across the entrance to a driveway. It blocked their only viable path to the front door of 112 Oak Creek Lane. Getting the bariatric stretcher from the street, over the meticulously manicured lawn, and up the porch steps would cost them precious minutes they might not have.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dave muttered, bringing the rig to a halt.

“People don’t think, Dave. They just are,” Alex said, his voice flat. He swung the passenger door open and stepped out into the humid evening air, the strobing red and blue lights painting his lean frame in frantic strokes of color.

A man stood on the lawn beside the offending truck, holding a garden hose. He was in his late fifties, with a soft, fleshy build that strained the fabric of his polo shirt and a sour, entitled expression that seemed permanently etched onto his face. He watched Alex approach with undisguised contempt, as if the paramedic were a particularly stubborn weed that had sprouted on his perfect turf.

“Sir, I need you to move your vehicle,” Alex said, keeping his tone level and professional. It was the voice he used a hundred times a shift, a calm barrier against the chaos. “We have a medical emergency, and you’re blocking our access.”

The man, Markus Henderson, lowered his hose slightly, letting water pool around his expensive loafers. “And I have a right to park in front of my own property. This isn’t the city. You people can’t just do whatever you want out here.”

“This isn’t about parking, sir. It’s about getting to a patient,” Alex explained, his patience already fraying at the edges. “We need the driveway for stretcher access. The patient is bariatric. It’ll take less than thirty seconds for you to move it.”

Henderson scoffed, a wet, unpleasant sound. “Bariatric? So she’s fat. Not my problem. You can walk. It’s good for you.” He gestured vaguely toward the ambulance. “Go around. Earn your paycheck.”

A familiar cold anger began to uncoil in Alex’s gut. He unconsciously touched the thin, white scar above his right eyebrow. The ghost of a different siren, a different delay, echoed in his memory—a VIP’s motorcade, a seven-year-old girl, and a lesson learned in blood and regret. Delays cost lives. Entitlement was a weapon.

“Sir,” Alex’s voice dropped, losing its professional warmth and gaining a harder edge. “There’s a 74-year-old woman inside that house who has likely fractured her hip. Every minute we wait increases her pain and the risk of complications. I’m not asking you again. Move the truck. Now.”

Henderson’s face flushed a blotchy, furious red. He puffed out his chest, the minor lord of his suburban fiefdom facing a peasant revolt. “Don’t you take that tone with me! I know the law. I used to be a lawyer. You can’t order me to do anything. This is my property! You lay a hand on my truck and I’ll have your job. I’ll sue you, your partner, and this whole goddamn city!”

Alex stared at him for a long moment. He saw the insecurity masquerading as arrogance, the petty tyranny of a small man. He had dealt with men like Henderson his entire career. They were obstacles, human-shaped delays, and there was a protocol for dealing with them. It just wasn't the one Henderson was expecting.

Without another word, Alex turned and walked back to the ambulance.

“What’s the plan?” Dave asked, leaning out the window. “He’s not budging. Cops are ten minutes out, easy.”

“We don’t have ten minutes,” Alex said calmly. He keyed the radio, his voice betraying none of the cold fury that was now coursing through his veins.

“Dispatch, this is Medic 21. Be advised, we have a blocked access at the scene. Patient extrication is delayed. I need you to dispatch the closest engine company for assistance.”

There was a brief pause on the other end. “Medic 21, confirm? You’re requesting Fire for… access?”

“That’s affirmative, Dispatch,” Alex said, his eyes locking onto Henderson, who was watching him with a smug, triumphant smirk. “Requesting fire assist. We need to clear a vehicle obstruction.”

The smirk on Henderson’s face faltered, replaced by confusion. He likely expected the police, a ticket, a lengthy argument he was certain he would win. He didn’t understand the language Alex was speaking.

But the fire department did.

Less than two minutes later, a sound far deeper and more menacing than the ambulance’s siren began to tear through the suburban tranquility. It was the guttural, air-horn blast of a full-sized ladder truck. The ground began to vibrate as the monstrous, ten-ton engine roared down Oak Creek Lane, its lights turning the entire street into a pulsating kaleidoscope of red.

The engine lumbered to a stop behind the ambulance, dwarfing it, its diesel engine a throbbing growl that seemed to shake the very foundations of the houses. Neighbors, drawn by the new commotion, peered from behind curtains and cracked open their front doors.

The fire captain, a mountain of a man named O’Malley, hopped down from the cab, his face a grim mask. He took in the scene in a single glance—the ambulance, the blocked driveway, Henderson standing dumbfounded on his lawn, and Alex waiting calmly by his rig.

“Ryder,” O’Malley grunted, his eyes already on the gleaming pickup. “He won’t move it?”

“Says it’s his right,” Alex replied.

O’Malley nodded, a grim understanding passing between the two men. They had seen this a thousand times in a thousand different ways. He turned to his crew. “Alright, lads. Bumper block on the front. We’re pushing it.”

The firefighters moved with practiced, brutal efficiency. Henderson’s confusion finally curdled into panicked rage.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he shrieked, running towards the fire engine. “That’s a sixty-thousand-dollar truck! You can’t do this!”

O’Malley simply held up a hand the size of a dinner plate, stopping Henderson in his tracks. “Sir, this is now an active emergency scene. For your own safety, return to your lawn or my men will remove you.”

As the fire engine’s massive steel bumper nudged against the pristine chrome of Henderson’s pickup, a sickening, high-pitched creak echoed down the street.

“NO!” Henderson screamed, his voice cracking with disbelief.

Then came the crunch.

It was a deeply satisfying sound of shearing metal and shattering plastic. The fire engine didn’t even strain as it shoved the truck forward, scraping it along the curb. Headlights shattered, the front fender buckled and tore like wet cardboard, and the front axle groaned in protest before snapping with a loud crack. The truck was pushed a dozen feet down the road, leaving the driveway wide open and a trail of fluid and broken parts in its wake.

The engine idled for a moment, its work done.

Henderson stared at the mangled wreck of his expensive toy, his mouth agape, his face a mask of apoplectic horror. He looked from his ruined truck to the impassive firefighters, and finally to Alex.

Alex Ryder didn’t give him the satisfaction of a smirk or a triumphant glare. His face was a cold, professional mask. The fire in his gut was banked, for now. He gave Captain O’Malley a single, grateful nod.

Then he turned his back on the man and the wreckage, grabbing the handle of the gurney. The battle for the driveway was over. The patient was waiting. But as he walked toward the house, he knew with absolute certainty that the war with Markus Henderson had just begun.