Chapter 11 - THE SHADOW STRIKE
“The barge is going to blow!” Agent Vance screamed over the sirens. “Evacuate to the skids!”
Tactical agents hauled Silvio toward the hovering helicopter’s hoist line.
Leo stood by the catwalk, frozen in fear as flames leaped from the fuel manifold below.
Lorenzo grabbed the boy by his collar and shoved him toward the hoist harness.
“Clip in, Leo! Go!”
“Lorenzo, what about you?” Leo yelled over the howling wind.
“Move!”
Lorenzo snapped the carabiner into Leo’s vest and signaled the crew chief.
The cable whipped upward, lifting the boy into the belly of the Blackhawk just as an explosion ripped through the lower storage tanks.
A massive fireball shot into the morning sky.
The deck buckled beneath Lorenzo’s boots.
The shockwave threw him ten feet through the air.
He slammed against the steel coaming, his vision swimming with fire and smoke.
The Blackhawk was forced to bank sharply away to avoid the thermal updraft.
“Falcone!” Vance shouted from the open cabin door, throwing an emergency tether toward the burning deck.
The line fell short, swallowed by the wall of roaring flames.
Lorenzo looked over the side of the barge.
The water was twenty feet below, choked with burning oil slicks.
If he jumped into the fire, he would burn alive.
If he stayed on the deck, the main fuel bunker would vaporize him in five seconds.
He dragged himself to the forward bow, where the wind kept the water clear of fuel for a twenty-yard radius.
He looked toward the distant shoreline of Boston.
Vivienne.
He leaped into the void.
The freezing Atlantic ocean swallowed him whole.
The shock of the sub-zero water knocked the breath from his lungs.
The darkness pulled him down.
Above him, the surface of the harbor detonated in a blinding roar of orange fire that shook the sea floor.
Lorenzo kicked with all the strength left in his bruised, bleeding body.
Salt water burned his open wounds.
His lungs screamed for air.
His head broke the surface twenty yards from the blazing wreckage.
He gasped, drawing air filled with smoke and ash.
He floated on his back, shivering uncontrollably, his limbs growing numb in the freezing current.
Through the heavy fog, a small, sleek vessel emerged.
Not a police boat.
Not a Coast Guard cutter.
It was Vivienne’s father’s old wooden launch, The Wanderer.
At the helm stood Mateo, pale as a ghost, clutching his surgical wound with one hand while steering with the other.
Beside him, wrapped in an oversized parka with tears streaming down her soot-stained face, stood Vivienne.
“Lorenzo!” she screamed across the water.
Lorenzo tried to lift his arm, but hypothermia had already turned his muscles to stone.
Vivienne didn't hesitate.
She grabbed a life ring tied to a nylon line and threw it with perfect accuracy across the waves.
The orange ring splashed down three feet from his face.
Lorenzo locked his freezing fingers into the braided rope.
Mateo threw the throttle into reverse.
Vivienne hauled on the line with everything she had, crying out with the strain, pulling him inch by inch toward the wooden hull.
Hands grabbed his shoulders.
Mateo and Vivienne dragged him over the gunwale onto the deck.
Lorenzo collapsed onto the wet boards, coughing up salt water and bile.
Vivienne fell across him, wrapping her arms around his freezing chest, burying her face into his neck.
“You fool,” she wept, her tears burning against his icy skin. “You absolute fool.”
Lorenzo’s trembling, gray-blue hand lifted slowly.
He touched her tear-streaked cheek.
“Did you... see the ring?” he whispered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Vivienne held up her left hand.
May you like
The platinum band gleamed against the gray morning light.
“I’m never taking it off,” she said.
