Chapter 9 - The Siege of Pier 42
Before Adrian or Emma could respond to Victor’s confession, the entire skyscraper shuddered beneath the impact of a massive concussive explosion.
The floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the corner office blew inward in a deafening roar of shattering glass and freezing wind.
Emma was thrown backward onto the carpet as a hail of razor-sharp glass shards rained across the room like crystalline shrapnel.
Adrian reacted with savage speed, tackling Emma behind the heavy walnut desk as high-caliber sniper rounds began chewing through the mahogany paneling.
The city lights below flickered once, twice, and then vanished completely as the primary power grid to the maritime commercial district was severed.
The executive suite plunged into pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the rhythmic, sweeping beams of tactical searchlights mounted on two unmarked black helicopters hovering outside the shattered windows.
"They’re here," Victor said, pulling the silver revolver from his desk drawer with a hand that had suddenly stopped trembling.
The pathetic, weeping old man had vanished; in his place stood the ruthless patriarch who had commanded an underworld empire for three decades.
"Douglas Vance doesn't leave loose ends," Victor growled, cocking the hammer of the revolver.
"The moment you brought the evidence out of that storage locker, he mobilized his private security division."
"They’re not here to arrest us, Adrian."
"They’re here to burn this building to the ground and write it off as an electrical fire caused by the blizzard."
Heavy tactical boots pounded against the marble floor of the executive foyer outside the suite.
Flashbang grenades arced through the doorway, detonating with blinding white light and concussive bangs that rang in Emma’s ears like church bells.
Mercenaries in full body armor and night-vision optics poured into the office, their suppressed carbines spitting controlled bursts of lethal fire.
Adrian leaned around the edge of the walnut desk, returning fire with lethal, pinpoint accuracy.
Two operators collapsed in the doorway, their tactical gear clattering against the shattered glass.
"The private express elevator behind my personal washroom!" Victor yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire, firing three rounds from his revolver into the smoke-filled corridor.
"It runs on an independent diesel backup generator and drops directly into the deep-water submarine pens at Pier 42!"
"There's an armored maritime interceptor boat docked in berth three!"
"Take Emma and get to the water!"
"We’re not leaving you behind, Father!" Adrian shouted, reloading his weapon with mechanical precision.
"You don't have a choice, Adrian!" Victor roared back, stepping out from behind the desk and firing the remaining rounds in his cylinder into the advancing mercenary line.
A high-caliber round caught Victor squarely in the center of his chest, jerking his body backward against the shattered window frame.
A second round tore through his right shoulder, splashing dark blood across the white carpet.
"Victor!" Emma screamed, reaching out instinctively to grab his coat.
Victor grabbed Emma’s hand with his remaining strength, his fingers locking around hers with an iron grip that echoed her father's strength.
He pressed a heavy platinum keycard and an encrypted thumb drive into her palm, closing her fingers tightly around them.
"This is the master encryption key to the family’s global maritime assets, Emma," Victor whispered, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips as he smiled through the agony.
"Michael was the rightful king of this family."
"His bloodline takes the throne."
"Tell your father... when you see him in whatever place comes next... tell him his little brother held the line."
Victor shoved Emma violently toward the private elevator door behind the washroom, where Adrian was already holding the reinforced steel door open.
"Go, Adrian! Protect your Queen!" Victor roared.
Victor turned back toward the smoke-filled doorway, pulled two fragmentation grenades from a hidden compartment beneath the desk credenza, and yanked the pins with both hands.
"Vance!" Victor bellowed into the darkness as the mercenaries breached the threshold.
"Tell your brother the Russo family sends its regards!"
Adrian pulled Emma into the elevator cab and slammed the emergency hydraulic lock lever down just as the twin grenades detonated in the executive suite.
The blast tore through the forty-second floor in a ball of orange fire and concussive force that shook the elevator shaft to its steel foundations.
The express elevator dropped like a stone down the dark shaft, falling forty floors through the belly of the skyscraper at terrifying speed.
Emma pressed her back against the elevator wall, her chest heaving, her knuckles white around the platinum keycard Victor had pressed into her hand.
Her hands were covered in Victor Russo’s blood.
The man she had spent her entire life despising as a greedy, treacherous usurper had just blown himself to pieces to buy her thirty seconds of life.
The elevator struck the bottom buffers with a heavy hydraulic hiss, the doors sliding open into the damp, echoing darkness of Pier 42’s subterranean submarine pen.
Cold harbor water lapped against the concrete pilings, smelling of diesel fuel, salt, and winter ice.
Tied to the central concrete slip sat a sleek, thirty-eight-foot carbon-fiber tactical interceptor boat, its twin inboard diesel engines humming in standby mode.
"Move! To the boat!" Adrian commanded, leading her down the metal gangway.
Behind them, the emergency sirens of the harbor facility began to scream as the fire from the tower above triggered the automatic suppression systems.
They leaped onto the deck of the interceptor just as heavy steel security gates at the mouth of the pier began to grind shut.
Adrian dove behind the helm controls, engaged the twin throttles, and pushed them to maximum power.
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The twin twelve-hundred-horsepower engines roared like caged beasts, churning the black harbor water into white froth as the interceptor launched forward like a missile.
The boat’s reinforced bow struck the closing steel security gates at forty knots, tearing through the chains and launching the craft into the freezing, open waters of New York Harbor.
