Chapter 28 - The Storm Over New York Harbor
The world seemed to spin on its axis.
Sal’s blood ran colder than the Arctic deep. Everything—the dock bonds, Bellini’s vendetta, Vance’s corporate posturing—had been an elaborate, multi-layered operation designed to separate Sal from his son and brand him as a fugitive while corrupt elements within the state apparatus legally stripped Mateo from his care.
"Frank!" Sal roared, sprinting down the catwalk stairs, ignoring the searing fire in his shot shoulder. "Get Mateo out of the crypt! Use the underground coal tunnel out to the marina!"
*"We’re already moving, Sal!"* Frank shouted through heavy wind. *"Father Thomas is holding the church doors, but they’re using battering rams! I have Mateo! We’re heading for the Boston Whaler docked behind the parish dock, but the harbor is crawling with patrol boats! You have ten minutes before they lock down the Narrows!"*
Sal hit the warehouse floor at a dead sprint. He didn't look back at the bodies or the burning wreckage. He burst through the warehouse side doors into the freezing tempest of Newark Bay.
Moored at the end of the industrial pier was an offshore tactical speedboat—a twin-engine, high-performance Interceptor that Vance’s contractors had kept on standby for escape.
Sal vaulted onto the fiberglass deck, severed the heavy mooring lines with his combat knife, and smashed the ignition panel with the butt of his gun, hotwiring the starter leads. The twin 500-horsepower Mercury outboards roared to life with a deafening, mechanical scream.
Sal slammed the twin throttles forward.
The boat launched out of the slip like an arrow, its bow rising violently as the hull slammed against five-foot swells in the pitch-black waters of Newark Bay. Rain lashed Sal’s face like needles. Blood soaked through his shirt from his bullet wound, but he locked his hands onto the steering wheel, ignoring the agony.
Behind him, sirens wailed along the New Jersey shoreline as emergency vehicles rushed toward the burning railyard. Ahead of him lay the treacherous waters of the Kill Van Kull, the narrow tidal strait separating New Jersey from Staten Island.
Sal navigated through the churning black waves by sheer memory, cutting through navigational buoys, his eyes straining against the blinding rain.
Through the storm, the dark silhouette of the Staten Island coastline emerged. High on the bluffs, the spire of St. Jude’s chapel was lit by the flashing red and blue lights of dozens of tactical vehicles. Tear gas drifted across the cemetery lawns.
Suddenly, a bright, blinding beam of halogen cut through the rain from the water ahead.
A sixty-foot Coast Guard tactical cutter swept across Sal’s path, its deck gun manned, a booming loudspeaker cutting through the gale:
*"UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL, KILL YOUR ENGINES IMMEDIATELY! PREPARE TO BE BOARDED!"*
Sal didn't slow down. He jammed the throttles all the way to the firewall.
"Not tonight," Sal snarled through gritted teeth.
The Interceptor surged to fifty knots, skipping across the crests of the black waves. The cutter sounded its horn, firing warning flares into the sky. Sal spun the wheel hard to port, banking the speedboat at an impossible forty-degree angle, cutting behind the cutter’s stern through its heavy wake, skimming mere inches from the steel hull before shooting out into the open bay.
Around the bend of the island, tucked inside a dark, rocky inlet behind St. Jude’s cemetery, Sal spotted a small, twenty-foot Boston Whaler bouncing violently against the wooden dock.
Standing on the dock in the pouring rain was Frank Santoro, clutching his bleeding arm, desperately shielding a small, trembling figure wrapped in a yellow rain slicker.
"MATEO!" Sal bellowed over the roar of the engines.
Mateo looked up through the sheets of rain, seeing the battered speedboat sliding toward the dock. "DADDY!"
Sal cut the engines and slammed into reverse, bringing the heavy speedboat alongside the timber pylons with a splintering crash.
Before the boat even settled, Sal leaped onto the slick dock, his heavy arms sweeping Mateo off his feet and pulling him into his chest. Mateo buried his face against Sal’s neck, his small hands clutching his father’s wet collar with all his might.
"I’ve got you, baby," Sal breathed, his tears mingling with the saltwater on his face. "I’ve got you."
"Sal!" Frank yelled, stumbling onto the speedboat’s deck. "We don't have time! A helicopter is inbound from Fort Hamilton! They’ve got thermal imaging!"
From the north, the rhythmic, thunderous thumping of heavy rotor blades tore through the storm clouds. A military-grade Sikorsky chopper swept low over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, its powerful searchlight sweeping the churning waters of the harbor.
Sal carried Mateo onto the speedboat, setting him down safely in the covered cabin beneath the console. He pulled off his heavy wool coat and wrapped it securely around his son.
"Stay down, Mateo. Keep your head between your knees," Sal instructed softly, kissing the boy's forehead. "No matter what happens. You hear me?"
"Daddy, you're bleeding again," Mateo cried, looking at Sal's crimson shoulder.
Sal smiled, a fierce, beautiful smile of pure love. "Just a scratch, kiddo. Daddy’s made of iron. Remember?"
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Sal closed the cabin door, turned to the helm, and shoved the throttles forward. The speedboat leaped forward into the vast, stormy expanse of New York Harbor, heading straight out toward the open Atlantic.
***
