Chapter 21 - The Harbor Ambush
Rain poured in merciless sheets over Pier 42, churning the black harbor waters into frothing foam.
Julian crouched behind a rusted shipping container, rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead. Flanked by Salieri and eight elite Vance enforcers equipped with night-vision optics and suppressed carbines, he watched the silhouettes moving along the gantry cranes above.
Clara’s tactical intuition had been spot-on: the hijackers hadn't just boarded the ship; they had set up a sniper kill zone overlapping the primary dock approach. Because Clara had hacked the port authority’s secondary fiber-optic loop from the manor, Julian had bypassed the fatal chokepoint, coming in from the water via tactical zodiac boats.
"Three targets on the crane platform," Salieri whispered through the tactical headset. "Two more guarding the bridge access."
"Take them in sync," Julian ordered, his voice ice. "No alarms. We need the captain alive."
Muffled *thwips* spat through the stormy air. Two guards crumpled off the catwalk, plunging silently into the churning dark waves below. Julian moved forward with lethal speed, his weapon tucked tight against his shoulder. He cleared the lower gangway, kicking open the steel hatch leading to the cargo control center.
Inside, three men clad in European tactical gear turned, their MP5s swinging toward the door.
Julian fired twice before they could squeeze off a round. The first two collapsed instantly, double-tapped through the chest. Salieri lunged forward, tackling the third man onto the steel grating, twisting his arm back until bone snapped with a sickening pop.
The operative screamed in Italian, spitting blood onto Salieri’s boots.
Julian knelt down, pressing the smoking barrel of his pistol against the operative’s temple. "Who hired you? Was it the Council? Was it Moretti’s bastard son?"
The operative choked out a bloody laugh, his eyes wild with fanatical defiance. "You think... you think you saved the shipment, Vance? Look at the transponder... look at the logs!"
Julian’s eyes darted to the control monitor. The cargo manifests weren't being rewritten to steal the ship.
They were being scrubbed to register an entirely different cargo: fifty metric tons of illegal military-grade explosives, with the destination tagged directly to the Vance estate in upstate New York.
At that exact second, Julian’s encrypted sat-phone vibrated violently. It was Clara.
"Julian! Get out of there!" Clara’s voice was frantic over the line, accompanied by the distant sound of automatic gunfire. "Pier 42 was a diversion! They used our security blackout to bypass the estate’s outer ridge! They’re inside the perimeter!"
Julian felt his soul turn to ice. "Clara! Hold the safe room! Constance—"
May you like
"Constance is with me," Clara’s voice suddenly turned dead calm, ice-cold and utterly terrifying. "We aren't in the safe room, Julian. We’re in the armory. Don't come back for us. Finish them there, because whoever makes it past this hallway will die at my feet."
***
