Chapter 8 - The Ambush at Pier 17
The revelation hit me like physical blow.
“A federal agent is colluding with the Moretti family?”
“Miller’s brother runs the maritime logistics firm that handles Moretti’s trucking out of Jersey,” Jack said, releasing my neck and stepping toward the wall safe concealed behind a panoramic painting of the Atlantic coast. “Miller gets promotions for taking down Northbridge, Moretti gets monopoly control of the Eastern Seaboard, and the Department of Justice applauds the whole filthy transaction.”
The safe opened with a dull electronic chime.
Jack didn't pull out cash or bonds. He pulled out a thick, leather-bound notebook with blackened, worn edges, and a small, secure satellite phone.
“This is the ledger,” Jack said, holding up the notebook. “Every transaction, every kickback, every shell account tied to Northbridge for the last twenty years. If Miller gets this, I go to prison for the rest of my life. But if *we* release the forensic audit of Apex Transatlantic, it links directly to Miller’s brother’s offshore bank in Cyprus.”
“Then we leak it,” I said immediately. “We send it to the *New York Times*, the *Boston Globe*, every federal watchdog in Washington.”
“We can’t leak what we don’t physically control,” Jack replied grimly. “The hard drives containing the server mirrors for Apex are locked in our secure storage vault at Pier 17. The final shipment is being loaded right now. If we don’t pull those drives before Miller executes his secondary search warrant at noon, he’ll seize them, wipe the Cyprus files, and doctor the rest to frame us.”
He turned to look at me.
“I have to go down there personally,” Jack said. “Marco has six men at the pier, but the terminal manager is terrified. I need to authorize the drive extraction myself.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
Jack’s eyes hardened. “No. It’s too dangerous. You stay here.”
“If you go down there with six armed men, you look like a mob boss preparing for a shootout,” I argued, stepping into his path. “If you go down there with your corporate narrative advisor and an audit team, you look like a CEO conducting an internal compliance review. If Miller shows up with state troopers, my presence makes it impossible for them to open fire without explaining why they attacked corporate civilians.”
Jack stared at me, his jaw working as he weighed the odds.
“You stay behind me,” he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, protective growl. “You do not speak unless I tell you to. And if things go wrong, you run. Do you understand me, Emily? You run and you don't look back.”
“I understand,” I lied.
Ten minutes later, we were in the back of an armored black SUV, cutting through the heavy rain toward the industrial dockyards of South Boston.
Pier 17 was a desolate, windswept stretch of cracked asphalt and towering shipping containers painted rust-red and faded blue. Rain fell in sheets, blurring the gray horizon of the ocean. Heavy cranes loomed like giant skeletal beasts against the storm.
Our SUV pulled into the gravel lot outside Warehouse 4. Marco’s black sedan was already parked there, along with two nondescript white cargo vans.
“Wait here,” Jack instructed, pulling a black semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster, checking the chamber with a smooth, practiced motion, and slipping it back under his coat.
“Jack—”
“Stay in the car, Emily. Five minutes.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the pouring rain, slamming the door behind him.
I watched through the tinted, rain-streaked glass as Jack walked toward the small metal side door of Warehouse 4. Marco emerged from the shadows of the loading dock, nodding as Jack approached.
They disappeared inside.
One minute passed. Two minutes.
The rain hammered against the roof of the SUV like a drumroll.
Then I saw it.
At the far end of the terminal access road, two dark utility vans with blacked-out windows turned the corner, their headlights off, crawling slowly through the standing water toward Warehouse 4.
They weren't FBI vehicles. They didn't have government plates.
They were Moretti’s men.
My heart seized. Miller hadn't waited for noon to execute a legal warrant. He had given Moretti the coordinates, knowing Jack would be forced to go to Pier 17 to secure the servers.
It wasn't a raid. It was an execution.
Without thinking, I grabbed my phone, threw open the car door, and stepped out into the freezing deluge.
The wind nearly knocked me off my feet. Rain instantly soaked through my blazer, plastering my hair to my face as I sprinted across the slick concrete toward the metal door of the warehouse.
“Jack!” I screamed, but the roar of the wind and the ocean swallowed my voice.
I reached the metal door and shoved it open, tumbling into the cavernous, echoing interior of the warehouse.
The smell of rust, motor oil, and salt air hung heavy in the darkness. High above, halogen lights buzzed dimly, casting long, distorted shadows across stacks of wooden shipping crates.
At the center of the warehouse floor, Jack, Marco, and three technicians were standing around an open server rack, disconnecting cables.
“Jack!” I shouted again, my voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls.
Jack whipped around, his gun half-drawn before he recognized me. “Emily? What the hell are you doing—?”
“Van!” I gasped, pointing back toward the door. “Two vans outside! No lights! It’s Moretti!”
Marco didn't ask questions. He drew his weapon in a single fluid motion and yelled to the technicians: “Get down! Kill the main lights!”
Before the words had fully left his mouth, the high glass windows near the roof shattered with a deafening roar.
Gunfire ripped through the warehouse.
Automatic rounds punched through the metal walls, sparking against steel beams and sending splinters of wood flying from the shipping crates.
One of the technicians screamed as he fell, clutching his shoulder.
Jack moved with terrifying speed. In a fraction of a second, he crossed the open floor, tackled me around the waist, and dragged me behind a massive steel shipping container just as a hail of bullets shredded the spot where I had been standing.
We crashed to the concrete floor. Jack shielded my body with his own, his heavy coat pressing down on me, his breathing ragged in my ear.
“I told you to stay in the car,” he growled, though his arm tightened around me protectively.
“You’re welcome!” I gasped, my chest heaving as bullets pinged off the steel container inches above our heads.
Across the warehouse, Marco was returning fire, the heavy *crack-crack-crack* of his handgun punctuated by harsh curses in Italian.
“They’ve got the main exits blocked!” Marco shouted over the gunfire. “They brought eight or nine guys, Jack! They’re moving between the aisles!”
Jack peeked around the corner of the container, fired three rapid shots that drew a scream of pain from the shadows, and pulled back.
“The back loading dock opens onto the water,” Jack said to me, his pale eyes blazing with adrenaline and cold, lethal focus. “There’s a security boat tied to Slip 3. Marco and I will draw their fire toward the front offices. You take the hard drives and you run for the boat.”
“I’m not leaving you!” I yelled over the deafening noise.
Jack cupped my face with one large, wet hand, his thumb pressing hard against my cheekbone. His gray eyes were intense, terrifying, and breathtakingly alive.
“Listen to me, Emily,” he said, his voice cutting through the chaos. “Those drives have the evidence that destroys Miller and Moretti. If they kill me, you’re the only person who can bury them. Take the drives. Get to the water.”
Before I could answer, the gunfire abruptly ceased.
A heavy, sickening silence fell over the warehouse, broken only by the sound of the rain beating against the metal roof.
Then, a voice echoed through the vast space.
Smooth. Rasping. Mocking.
May you like
“Jack!” Dominic Moretti called out from the darkness near the loading bays. “Come on out, boy! Let’s finish what your father started twenty years ago!”
***
