Chapter 11 - The Lair of the Beast
The black armored Maybach tore through the empty industrial grid of Long Island City at eighty miles per hour.
Behind us, two unmarked tactical support vans maintained a tight triangular escort formation.
Before leaving Fifth Avenue, I had dispatched six armed operators from our private executive security force directly to Columbia Presbyterian.
Martha Carter’s oncology floor was placed under complete lockdown.
Every nurse, doctor, and technician entering that hallway was vetted against hospital registries.
No one was touching Emma’s mother while I drew breath.
Ahead of us, the towering brick chimneys of the abandoned Domino sugar refinery rose into the night sky like jagged black tombstone slabs.
The complex sat directly on the East River, surrounded by razor-wire fences, rusted iron cranes, and decaying wooden piers.
Cold winter fog rolled off the black water, wrapping the brick monolith in a ghostly shroud.
Inside those crumbling walls, two hundred thousand gallons of industrial fuel sat in rusted auxiliary storage tanks from the refinery's manufacturing era.
Dmitri Kolov was not a strategist anymore.
He was a cornered wolf doused in gasoline, holding a match to his own fur.
Marco killed the headlights four blocks before the outer perimeter gate.
The Maybach coasted to a halt behind a row of abandoned freight train cars.
"Federal surveillance drones have picked up heat signatures inside the main boiling room," Marco reported, checking his encrypted tactical tablet.
"Seven hostiles."
"Kolov is on the catwalk directly above the eastern fuel reservoir."
"He has an electronic detonator wired to forty pounds of commercial mining charges strapped to the tank valves."
"If that reservoir ignites, the concussive wave will shatter every window from Williamsburg to Lower Manhattan."
I pulled a customized sound-suppressed pistol from my shoulder holster and chambered a subsonic round.
"Where is our counter-breach team?" I asked, adjusting the Kevlar-lined collar of my tailored black coat.
"Team One has slipped into the water on underwater diver propulsion vehicles," Marco answered.
"They are scaling the riverfront discharge pipes beneath the tank deck."
"Master Sergeant Keller is leading the explosive ordnance disposal team."
"They estimate four minutes to trace and sever the primary radio detonator relay."
"That leaves me three minutes to keep Kolov talking," I said calmly.
"I am going with you, Boss," Marco insisted, racking his tactical shotgun.
"No," I replied, meeting his eyes with an unyielding stare.
"Kolov has a spotter on the water tower."
"If he sees two men walking through the loading bay, his finger will twitch on the trigger before Keller reaches the charges."
"I walk in alone."
"You lead the perimeter containment and cover the emergency river exits."
"If Keller disables that radio signal, take out the rooftop spotters instantly."
"Understood, Dominic," Marco murmured, his jaw tight with grim respect.
"Don't let that animal take you down with him."
I stepped out of the vehicle into the freezing river wind.
My leather soles made no sound as I crossed the gravel rail yard.
The air smelled of salt spray, rotten timber, and the sharp, volatile stench of leaking diesel fuel.
The heavy corrugated steel doors of the main refinery building were chained half-open.
I walked through the gap into the cavernous belly of the ruin.
Pipes as thick as ancient trees twisted overhead, rusted orange and weeping condensation in the cold.
In the center of the vast space, three massive cylindrical fuel tanks towered forty feet into the darkness.
Tangled bundles of commercial explosive bricks were taped to the primary pressure release valves, their red digital timing displays glowing like venomous eyes.
High above the tanks, standing on a rusted iron catwalk with an assault rifle slung over his back, stood Dmitri Kolov.
He looked like a ghost of the man who had terrorized the Brooklyn docks for six years.
His expensive Italian wool overcoat was torn and smeared with grease.
His graying hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and bulging with frantic madness.
In his right hand, he clutched a heavy yellow industrial detonator box, his thumb hovering directly over the red contact button.
"Castellano!" Kolov’s voice shrieked through the echo of the empty refinery.
"You actually came alone!"
"The great Dominic Castellano, bowing to my summons like a common courier!"
I walked to the center of the concrete floor and stopped directly below his perch, thirty yards from the fuel tanks.
I rested both hands in the pockets of my overcoat, tilting my chin up slightly to look at him.
"You told me to come, Dmitri," I said, my voice smooth, calm, and terrifyingly steady.
"And I never miss an opportunity to watch an empire burn."
Kolov let out a hysterical, barking laugh that rattled against the sheet metal ceiling.
"My empire?" he screamed, spitting down onto the catwalk floor.
"You think my empire is burning?"
"I built a kingdom from blood while you were signing balance sheets in your glass tower!"
"And you ruined it with a dead union worker's diary!"
"Arthur Carter was a dock rat!"
"His son was an insect who wouldn't stop buzzing!"
"And that girl... that little maid who washed your floors... she should have died in the rain!"
A chill ran through the damp air, but inside my veins, every drop of blood burned with pure, calculated fire.
"Arthur Carter had more honor in his dirtiest fingernail than you have in your entire bloodline, Dmitri," I said, taking a slow step forward.
"He built those docks with sweat and iron."
"You tried to turn them into an open grave for drugs and illegal weapons."
"And when you couldn't buy him, you poisoned him in his sleep like a coward."
Kolov sneered, shaking the yellow detonator violently in the air.
"Honor doesn't buy cargo ships, Castellano!"
"Power does!"
"And right now, I have all the power in this room!"
"One press of this button, and you, me, and this entire terminal turn into ash!"
"New York will remember that Dmitri Kolov took the king of Fifth Avenue down to hell with him!"
I glanced at the illuminated face of my wristwatch.
Three minutes and forty-five seconds had passed since Keller entered the lower drainage pipes.
A tiny green LED light on the bezel of my watch flashed twice.
The explosive charges had been bypassed.
The radio relay was dead.
I pulled my right hand out of my pocket, unbuttoned my coat, and looked up at the trembling madman on the catwalk.
"You have no power, Dmitri," I whispered.
May you like
"You never did."
"Press the button."
