Chapter 9 - Two Wolves, One Pack
A storm of lead rained down into the rusted cargo hold.
Sparks showered off the corroded bulkheads like firecrackers as hundreds of armor-piercing rounds chewed through the iron.
Ethan dropped to one knee behind a row of industrial steel barrels, firing two heavy shotgun blasts up toward the spotlights.
One of the massive halogen lamps exploded in a burst of white sparks, plunging the left side of the drydock into shadow.
Nico raised his assault rifle, leaning around the steel girder and firing short, controlled three-round bursts.
Two mercenaries on the upper walkway stumbled backward over the safety railing, plunging fifty feet into the empty concrete basin below.
"There are too many of them!" Ava screamed over the deafening cacophony of echoing gunfire.
"They have the high ground!"
Ava’s mind raced through the documents she had held in the vault.
She remembered the faded blue blueprints Arthur Collins had preserved in the back of the ledger file.
Her father had drawn detailed notes on the infrastructure of Drydock Three.
"Nico!" Ava shouted, grabbing his arm as he reloaded his rifle.
"The emergency sea valves!"
Nico turned his head, brass casings ejecting past his face.
"What about them?"
"This drydock is built five feet below the low-tide line of the ocean channel!" Ava yelled, pointing toward the rear wall of the hull.
"My father's notes showed an emergency floodgate operated by an auxiliary pneumatic pressure valve!"
"If we trip the hydraulic release, sea water from the inlet will flood this basin in ninety seconds!"
Ethan’s eyes widened with dark realization.
"The lower basin will flood, but the maintenance tunnels beneath the keel lead straight to the outer seawall!" Ethan said.
"The rush of water will wash out their perimeter vehicles on the access ramp!"
"Where is the valve release?" Nico demanded.
"Behind the auxiliary boiler in the engine compartment!" Ava yelled.
"I'll go," Ethan said, pumping another shell into his shotgun.
"No," Ava said, gritting her teeth against the agony in her shoulder.
"My father drew the pipe layout."
"It’s a maze of six identical pressure wheels."
"If you turn the wrong one, you vent lethal superheated steam into the corridor."
"I know which valve it is."
Nico grabbed Ava’s shoulders, staring fiercely into her pale, sweat-streaked face.
"You stay behind me until we reach the engine hatch," Nico commanded, his eyes burning with intense protectiveness.
"Ethan, suppress the eastern catwalk!"
"Go!" Ethan roared, stepping out into the open corridor and unleashing a thunderous barrage of shotgun fire toward the remaining spotlights.
Nico pulled Ava with him, sprinting across the bullet-riddled iron deck toward the dark entrance of the engine room.
Rounds ricocheted off the floorboards inches from their heels.
They plunged into the narrow, dark machinery space of the cargo ship.
The air in the engine room was suffocatingly hot, smelling of stale diesel fuel, stagnant water, and ancient grease.
Ava navigated the narrow iron catwalks by instinct and memory, following the rusted orange pipes overhead.
"There!" Ava cried, pointing toward a massive cast-iron wheel mounted against the reinforced concrete seawall bulkhead.
A thick steel chain was padlocked around the wheel to prevent accidental turning.
Nico raised his pistol without hesitation and fired two rounds point-blank into the brass padlock.
The shattered lock tumbled onto the deck.
Ava grabbed the iron wheel with both hands, throwing all her remaining body weight against the corroded metal.
The wheel didn't budge.
"It’s rusted shut!" Ava cried in despair, her strength rapidly failing.
Nico stepped in behind her, his large, muscular arms wrapping around her hands on the iron rim.
His broad chest pressed against her back, his breath ragged against her neck.
"Together, Ava," Nico growled through clenched teeth.
"One... two... pull!"
With a deafening groan of tortured iron, the seal broke.
The heavy valve wheel spun counterclockwise.
Deep within the belly of the seawall, massive pneumatic pistons hissed into life.
A shudder ran through the entire hull of the ship.
Outside in the basin, a terrifying roar built like a tidal wave crashing against a reef.
The external floodgates collapsed outward under the crushing weight of the Atlantic tide.
Millions of gallons of dark, foaming ocean water surged violently into Drydock Three.
Screams of panic erupted from the mercenaries on the lower walkways as a five-foot wall of sea water slammed through the basin.
The access ramp collapsed under the sheer hydraulic force of the rushing ocean.
Two of Marcus’s armored vehicles were swept sideways, their wheels losing traction as they were slammed into the concrete walls.
"The maintenance hatch!" Ava shouted, pointing toward a low iron tunnel at the waterline.
Ethan appeared in the doorway of the engine room, soaked in seawater and covered in soot.
"The basin is flooding!" Ethan yelled.
"Marcus is pulling back to the city!"
"Move!" Nico shouted, shoving Ava into the narrow maintenance pipe ahead of him.
The three of them crawled through the concrete conduit as water swirled around their waists.
The pipe exited thirty yards away through the outer seawall, opening onto a rocky, hidden cove outside the harbor perimeter.
They tumbled out onto the wet black stones, gasping for air as the cold ocean wind whipped around them.
Behind them, Drydock Three was completely submerged under twenty feet of churning ocean foam.
Marcus’s mercenary strike team had been shattered, their vehicles drowned, their heavy weapons lost beneath the tide.
Ava collapsed onto the wet gravel, her chest heaving, the sheer exhaustion threatening to pull her into unconsciousness.
Nico knelt beside her, his strong hands gathering her soaked frame against his chest.
He pulled his dry wool coat tighter around her shivering shoulders.
"You did it, Ava," Nico murmured, his voice softer than she had ever heard it.
"You saved us both."
Ava looked up into his dark eyes, feeling the warmth of his body driving away the bitter ocean chill.
"We're not finished yet, Mr. Romano," Ava whispered, her voice weak but steady.
Ethan stood on the rocks above them, looking inland toward the distant glittering skyline of the metropolis.
"Ava is right," Ethan said, checking his watch.
"It’s one o'clock in the afternoon."
"Helena’s emergency board meeting begins in two hours at the Romano Tower."
"Marcus is heading straight there to report our deaths."
Nico stood up, lifting Ava effortlessly into his arms as if she weighed nothing.
May you like
"Let him report it," Nico said, his eyes blazing with absolute, unyielding vengeance.
"The dead are coming to claim what’s theirs."
