Chapter 9 - The Black Water
The water of the harbor was black as crude oil and felt like liquid ice the moment Mark submerged his body.
A sharp, involuntary gasp caught in his throat as the frigid cold penetrated his thermal gear, constricting his lungs like an iron band. Every survival instinct screamed at him to scramble back onto the rocks, but he forced his limbs into motion, kicking forward through the rolling chop. The salt burned his eyes and nostrils as he navigated beneath the decaying wooden piers of Berth 7.
Above him, the heavy thud of combat boots echoed through the pier planks.
"Keep your eyes on the road," a gravelly voice shouted from above. "The boss said the father has thirty minutes left. If he doesn't show up, we prep the crate."
Mark floated motionless beneath the pilings, letting the tide push him toward the concrete foundation of the cold-storage plant. Ten feet ahead, half-submerged in the swirling gray surf, was the opening of the condenser intake channel.
The intake grate was rusted through, exactly as Mark had remembered from the port maintenance logs five years ago. Two of the iron bars had corroded completely away, leaving a jagged, narrow gap just large enough for a man's shoulders.
Mark unclipped his waterproof flashlight, holding it between his teeth, and slid his body into the submerged opening.
The tunnel was barely three feet wide, coated in slimy barnacles and reeking of dead vegetation. The water level left only three inches of air between the surface and the concrete ceiling. Mark pulled himself forward using his forearms, the sharp barnacles tearing through his jacket and cutting into his flesh. The cold was beginning to numb his fingers; his dexterity was fading rapidly. If he didn't clear the intake within two minutes, hypothermia would paralyze his diaphragm.
Suddenly, his hand struck an obstruction.
A newly installed chain-link mesh blocked the inner pipe. Mark cursed silently, spitting the flashlight into his palm. Mercer hadn't left the channel unguarded. The mesh was fresh galvanized steel, secured to the concrete walls with heavy masonry anchors.
Through the links of the fence, twenty feet deeper into the facility, Mark could hear the muffled sound of a child crying.
Lily.
The sound bypassed his freezing brain, igniting an explosive surge of adrenaline. Mark reached down to his boot and drew his combat knife. He couldn't cut the steel mesh, but the masonry around the rusted concrete bolts was decayed by decades of salt exposure.
With furious, desperate leverage, Mark jammed the hardened steel blade into the crumbling concrete beside the upper bolt, hammering the butt of the knife with his heel. The concrete cracked, raining dust into the freezing water. He pried violently. The bolt sheared free with a dull pop.
He grabbed the wire and peeled it back like the lid of a sardine can, squeezing his torso through the razor-sharp opening. The jagged wire shredded his shoulder, but he didn't feel the pain.
He dragged himself out of the flooded pipe onto a rusted steel walkway inside the subterranean basement of the plant. Water dripped from his soaked clothes, pooling around his boots. Shaking the ice from his vision, Mark drew his Sig Sauer, cleared the chamber of moisture, and listened.
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Above him, on the main floor, the heavy thrum of an industrial diesel generator masked the sound of his breathing. But from the center of the vast, open room above, a voice cut through the hum.
"Check the clock, Mercer," an operative shouted. "Time's up. The father isn't coming."
