AT TWO IN THE MORNING, I DISCOVERED A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL CLEANING MY PRIVATE STUDY WITH A BABY STRAPPED TO HER BACK, TERRIFIED THAT HER MOTHER WOULD LOSE HER JOB AND LEAVE THEM HOMELESS. BUT WHAT FROZE ME WASN'T HER TINY HANDS STRUGGLING WITH A VACUUM NEARLY AS LARGE AS SHE WAS. IT WAS WHEN SHE STARED AT MY LIBRARY WALL AND SOFTLY ASKED, "Mr. Duca... why does someone keep knocking from inside there?"

The trapped team leader was coughing blood against the crushed rear bumper of the Suburban. His chest was caved in, his tactical helmet cracked down the center, but his eyes were wide with malignant fury.

I walked over, stepped on his shattered wrist to pin his weapon hand, and crouched beside his face.

"Who authorized the raid?" I asked, my voice deadly and cold.

The man laughed, spitting a thick wad of crimson onto the polished floor. "You think... you think Marcus Hayes is the top of this food chain, Duca? Marcus is an errand boy. You think your father... spent twenty years building this cage just for Boston city politics?"

"Speak clearly," I said, pressing my boot harder into his wrist until the bones grated against one another. "You have about ninety seconds of lung capacity left before that punctured pleura drowns you."

The operative gasped, his face draining of color. "The bedrock vault... under the Common... it's not bonds. It's the central repository for the East Coast deep-water transit conduits. The federal syndicate bought the subterranean easements forty years ago. Marcus is liquidating the assets before the Department of Justice unseals the grand jury indictments tomorrow morning at dawn."

"Liquidating them how?" Vance demanded, stepping around the vehicle.

"Demolition," the operative wheezed, his eyes rolling back into his head. "They've placed five thousand pounds of commercial emulsion explosives in the lower drainage tunnels. When the tide hits peak high at four-thirty this morning, they trigger the charges. The seawater from the harbor will flood the entire bedrock network from Beacon Hill to South Station. It will collapse the sub-foundations of forty city blocks. Every document, every body, every bank ledger... wiped clean under two hundred million tons of seawater."

My stomach dropped into an icy abyss.

"What time is it, Vance?" I asked, not looking away from the dying man.

Vance checked his tactical chronometer. "Three-fifteen in the morning. Gabriel... that gives us seventy-five minutes."

"He’s lying about the trigger," the contractor whispered, his voice fading to a deathly rasp. "Hayes isn't waiting for the timer. He’s down there right now with the detonator team. He wants to watch it blow from the old pumping station."