Chapter 14 - The River Under The City
The freezing water of the tidal canal swallowed Sarah whole.
The current was brutal, carrying the combined runoff of three storm basins directly toward the Atlantic harbor.
She tumbled beneath the surface, the darkness absolute, her limbs battered by submerged wooden pilings and concrete debris.
She kicked frantically, breaking the surface of the churning water twenty yards downstream.
She tore the useless respirator from her face, gasping in the cold, wet air of the subterranean canal.
Ahead of her, through the arched concrete mouth of the storm tunnel, the gray morning light of Boston Harbor was visible.
A heavy splash sounded behind her.
Thomas surfaced five feet to her left, his strong strokes cutting through the undertow as he grabbed Sarah’s jacket shoulder.
“Stay in the center current!” he bellowed over the roar of the water.
“The shoreline rocks will break your legs!”
Together, swept along by the raging torrent, they were propelled out of the tunnel mouth into the open waters of the commercial harbor basin.
The morning sun was just breaking through the low coastal clouds, painting the water in shades of steel gray and cold gold.
A hundred yards across the basin stood the private pier of the Harbor Grand Hotel.
Dozens of television broadcast vans with towering satellite dishes were parked along the hotel’s waterfront promenade.
A large outdoor stage had been erected on the pier, adorned with red, white, and blue banners bearing the candidate's name in bold gold lettering:
MARCUS REED: A NEW DAWN FOR MASSACHUSETTS.
A crowd of two hundred reporters, campaign donors, and local dignitaries sat on folding chairs before the podium.
Marcus Reed was standing at the microphones, looking immaculate in a charcoal suit, delivering his keynote address to the cameras.
“We have to reach that stage, Dad,” Sarah gasped, spitting saltwater as they swam toward the pilings of the hotel dock.
“The media is live on the air,” Thomas said, his eyes narrowing as he tread water beside a creosote-soaked beam.
“Marcus can kill a man in an alley, Julianne.”
“He cannot kill two ghosts on live national television.”
Thomas reached into his water-sealed internal jacket pocket.
He pulled out a small, secondary thumb drive he had kept concealed on his person before the explosion.
“I didn't just upload the financial files to the US Attorney’s office, Julianne.”
“I set a simultaneous automated mirror feed to the newsroom servers of the Boston Globe and the Associated Press.”
“The files landed on every investigative editor’s desk at six-fifteen this morning.”
Sarah grabbed the wooden ladder attached to the hotel pier.
“Then why aren't the reporters confronting him right now?”
Thomas looked up at the stage above them.
“Because editors take two hours to verify source metadata before they allow an anchor to interrupt a live speech.”
“They don't have to verify the metadata if the primary witnesses walk onto the platform with the original documents in hand.”
Sarah climbed the wooden ladder, her wet boots dripping onto the weathered decking of the marina.
She reached into her leather bag.
The black leather binder was heavy, waterlogged, but entirely intact.
She pulled out the forged birth certificate of Julianne Bennett.
She pulled out the original photograph of her mother holding her on the pier.
And she pulled out the cassette tape containing Margaret’s final confession.
Thomas climbed up beside her, his face streaked with harbor grime and soot from the explosion.
He did not draw his weapon.
May you like
He straightened his back, pulling his soaked overcoat around his shoulders with the quiet, terrifying dignity of a soldier reporting for duty.
“Let’s go introduce ourselves to your uncle, Julianne.”
