Chapter 9 - The Blood on the Concrete
They crossed the slippery metal gangway spanning the churn of black water fifty feet below.
The intake canal roared like a caged animal as the river began to rise toward the high-tide mark.
Violet squirmed frantically in Camille’s arms, pushing her nose toward a low, iron bulkhead door marked VALVE CHAMBER 3.
The heavy padlock on the door had been sheared off with hydraulic bolt cutters.
Fresh gouges in the iron gleamed silver against the rust.
Julian pushed the door inward with the toe of his boot.
The heavy hinges groaned in protest, revealing a narrow, descending concrete stairway slick with green algae.
At the foot of the stairs, illuminated by the guttering flame of a single kerosene camping lantern, sat a scene of frantic violence.
Spent shell casings—9mm and .45 caliber—lay scattered across the wet steps like brass teeth.
A trail of dark, smeared blood led from the threshold down into the flooded tunnel below.
"Elena!" Julian called out, his voice echoing off the curved ceiling of the tunnel.
No answer came, only the rhythmic drip of condensation falling into the rising stagnant water.
Violet clawed violently against Camille's chest, wriggling free with surprising, desperate strength.
Despite her ruptured diaphragm, the cat dropped onto the wet steps and dragged herself forward, crying continuously in high, agonizing shrieks.
"Violet, no!" Camille scrambled down the slick stairs, heedless of the mud ruining her scrubs.
She caught the cat just as the animal reached a sodden wool blanket tucked into a dry alcove behind the massive hydraulic pistons.
The blanket was empty.
Beside it lay an open first-aid kit, rolls of torn gauze soaked in dark crimson, and a cracked silver compact mirror.
Julian knelt beside the blanket, his large hand trembling as he picked up the mirror.
Etched into the polished silver casing were two initials intertwined with rose-gold solder: E. M.
Elena Moretti.
"She was here," Julian muttered, his eyes tracing the red streaks leading toward the far end of the tunnel.
"She was treating a wound."
"She didn't leave voluntarily," Camille said, pointing to the wall.
Embedded in the soft concrete was a heavy copper bullet jacket, and below it, the scuffed marks of heavy combat boots dragging someone backward through the mud.
"Marcus found her," Julian said, his voice dropping into a register of utter ruin.
"He got here before us."
"No," Dante’s voice crackled through the radio earpiece.
"Boss. Look out the canal observation window. Now."
Julian and Camille rushed to the narrow, silt-covered glass slit looking out over the lower basin.
Through the sheets of rain, a hundred yards downstream, a private industrial tugboat was slowly untying from the old coal pier.
On its rear deck, standing beneath the glare of halogen work lights, stood Marcus Vance.
Beside him, held tightly by two armed operatives in rain slickers, was a woman with wild, matted dark hair, her white blouse soaked in blood, her wrists bound with heavy plastic zip-ties.
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Elena Vance was alive.
And Marcus was turning the vessel toward the open, storm-tossed mouth of the Atlantic.
