Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Dock 14
The black reinforced SUV cut through the industrial fog of the outer shipyard, tires splashing through deep puddles of brackish runoff. Vince drove with one hand clamped on the wheel, the other wrapping a sterile field dressing around a graze along his forearm. In the passenger seat, Lily sat with her seatbelt cinched tight, clutching Sofia’s cracked phone like a talisman.
"How long have you known who I was?" Vince asked, not taking his eyes off the rain-slicked tarmac.
"Mom showed me pictures," Lily answered quietly. "The one with you on the boat in Marseille. She said if bad men ever came, I had to run to the high tower in the city and find the man with the swallow tattoo. She said you would never let anyone hurt me."
Vince swallowed past the dry constriction in his throat. For six months, he had drowned in whiskey and grief, visiting an empty crypt in the Moreno family mausoleum, believing his wife had died an agonizing death in an alpine sanatorium. All the while, she had been buried alive in the underbelly of his own shipping empire, and he had been sharing a table with the woman who put her there.
The SUV slid to a halt beneath the shadow of Crane 9, just outside Dock 14. The docks were supposed to be decommissioned three years ago following an environmental dispute, yet through the veil of rain, yellow halogen floodlights cast long, sickly beams across the rusted shipping containers.
Vince cut the headlights and killed the engine. He reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a suppressed Kimber .45, checked the chamber with a rhythmic slide-rack, and tucked an extra magazine into his pocket.
"Stay down in the footwell," Vince instructed, his voice steady, stripped of all emotion save for lethal intent. "If anyone other than me opens this door, you pull this latch and run toward the security booth at the main gate. Do you understand?"
"She’s on the cargo ship at the slipway," Lily said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The Caspian Queen. Marcus keeps his private guard there."
Vince frowned. "The Caspian Queen was sold for scrap last winter."
"It never left," Lily whispered. "I was kept in the lower hold for two months before the nurse left the hatch unlocked."
A cold dread settled behind Vince's ribs. The Sterling family hadn't just hijacked his logistics network; they had created a shadow terminal right beneath his nose, using his own mothballed fleet to run unregistered contraband—and human cargo.
Leaving the SUV locked, Vince moved like a wraith through the labyrinth of shipping crates. The rain muffled his footfalls, his dark tactical jacket blending into the greasy gloom. Up ahead, the towering hull of the Caspian Queen rose from the dark water, rust weeping down its black steel plates.
Two sentries in heavy rain gear stood near the gangway, assault rifles slung across their chests, smoking beneath a corrugated tin awning.
"Marcus said Moreno wouldn't make it past the penthouse," one muttered, flicking a cigarette into the dark harbor water. "Julian had three teams waiting."
"Julian’s soft," the other replied. "Moreno isn't. If he survived the sweep, he's coming here first."
"Let him. He doesn't have the codes for the lower bulkhead. Even if he gets aboard, Sofia’s already prepped for transport."
Vince stepped out of the shadow behind them.
Before the first sentry could turn his head, Vince drove the steel butt of his pistol into the base of the man's skull. The sentry dropped without a sound. The second man spun, clawing for his slung carbine, but Vince was already inside his guard, catching the man’s throat with his left arm, driving him back against the steel gangway rail, and forcing the barrel of the Kimber under his chin.
"Bulkhead code," Vince hissed.
The man gagged, eyes wide with horror as he stared into Vince’s unblinking, bloodshot eyes. "I... I don't know it! Only Marcus and Vance have the master keys!"
"Wrong answer," Vince muttered, pressing his thumb hard into the nerve junction at the man’s neck. The guard’s knees buckled as unconsciousness claimed him. Vince dragged both bodies beneath the crane's shadow, stripping their radios and ammunition.
He keyed the captured earpiece into his ear just as static crackled over the frequency.
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“All stations, this is Marcus. Moreno is mobile. Shut down the lower hold protocols immediately. Flood the ballast on Deck Four. We leave no witnesses for the harbor patrol. Do it now.”
Vince’s blood ran ice-cold. Deck Four was the bottommost cargo hold—below the waterline.
