Chapter 3 - Blood on the South Docks
The night was freezing, the wind sweeping off Lake Michigan with the bite of broken glass.
I was not in my emerald velvet dress anymore. Gabriel had procured a heavy black tactical parka, thermal trousers, and fleece-lined boots for me from the security lockers. I sat in the reinforced rear cabin of Dominic’s black Suburban, sandwiched between two crates of tactical communication gear, while six unmarked vehicles glided through the industrial wasteland of South Chicago without headlights.
“You should have left her at the safehouse,” Gabriel grumbled from the front passenger seat, checking the night-vision sight on an assault rifle.
Dominic, sitting beside me in a black wool tactical coat, didn't turn his head. “Beatrice is the only person who can verify the shipping manifest on the spot. If the cargo isn't what Marcus ordered, we need to know before we trigger the alarms. She stays with me.”
I swallowed the lump of ice in my throat. My fingers were tucked deep inside the pockets of the parka, clutching a secure tablet linked to the Pierce network. “I’m fine, Gabriel,” I lied. “Just try not to get us shot.”
The convoy slowed to an idle two blocks from Pier 42. Through the rain-streaked window, the rusted cranes of the defunct steel mills rose into the low clouds like the skeletons of forgotten giants. The black silhouette of The Albatross sat low in the churning water, its diesel engines thrumming with a vibration that hummed through the asphalt under our tires.
On the concrete pier, four heavy cargo vans were parked in a defensive crescent. Men in insulated dock jackets and dark watch caps were unloading long wooden crates from a hydraulic container sling.
“Thermal imaging shows twenty-four targets on the pier,” Gabriel reported, looking at a wrist-mounted monitor. “Six more on the ship’s bridge. No signs of municipal police.”
“Of course not,” Dominic said softly. “Marcus owns the district commander. Gabriel, take teams two and three around the gantry crane. Cut their retreat to the water. Nobody boards that ship until I have the manifest.”
“Copy,” Gabriel said, slipping out into the darkness with the soundless grace of a ghost.
Dominic turned to me. In the dim amber glow of the dashboard, his features looked carved from obsidian. He unholstered a compact Glock 43 from his tactical belt and held it out to me by the grip.
“Do you know how to use this?” he asked.
“My father took me to the range every summer,” I said, looking at the matte black weapon. “Pull the slide, point the front sight, pull the trigger. But I’m an accountant, Dominic. I balance accounts; I don't liquidate them.”
“Tonight, you might have to do both,” he said, pressing the cold steel into my palm. His fingers closed over mine, firm and reassuringly steady. “Keep the safety off. Stay behind my left shoulder. If anyone wearing a red watch cap moves within ten yards of you, empty the magazine into their chest. Don’t hesitate. Hesitation is how good people end up in the mud.”
We slipped out of the vehicle into the biting wind. The smell of diesel fumes, sulfur, and rotting algae hit my face like a wet slap.
Dominic moved with an eerie, predatory economy. We navigated between stacks of rusted shipping containers, using the shadow of an overhead coal conveyor to approach the pier perimeter. Ahead of us, two men were prying open a crate with crowbars.
“Check the lot numbers,” a voice barked in the dark—rough, scarred, carrying the distinct rasp of heavy tobacco use.
I peeked around Dominic’s shoulder. Standing beneath the dock floodlight was Elias Crowe.
Seeing him on the surveillance monitor was terrifying; seeing him in the flesh was paralyzing. He was shorter than Dominic, but broader, with a thick neck and a face crisscrossed with surgical scars from the explosion that was supposed to have killed him two years ago. On his left hip hung a customized submachine gun.
Beside him stood Marcus Vance’s personal driver, a thug named Kroll, holding a clipboard.
“These are the Austrian shipments,” Kroll said, shining a flashlight into the straw packing. “Crowe, the boss wants these staged at the cathedral by dawn. If they aren’t in place before the morning shift arrives, the whole op blows.”
“The op won't blow,” Crowe sneered, spitting into the lake. “The golden boy is still upstairs sniffing perfume and listening to fiddlers. By noon tomorrow, Dominic Pierce will be cold meat on the altar, and Vivienne will be handing us the keys to the transit authority.”
Dominic didn't wait. He stepped out from the shadow of the container into the full glare of the halogen floodlights.
“You always were an impatient strategist, Elias,” Dominic said, his voice cutting through the thrum of the freighter’s engines like a silver blade.
Crowe’s head snapped around. Kroll dropped the clipboard, lunging for his sidearm, but Dominic raised his right hand.
A single suppressed shot whispered through the night air.
May you like
Kroll collapsed onto the wooden crate, a dark hole blossoming between his eyebrows, his weapon clattering harmlessly to the wet concrete.
“Ambush!” Crowe roared, dropping behind a forklift as automatic fire erupted from the gantry cranes above.
