Chapter 10 - THE BROOKLYN PIER
Midnight on the East River.
A thick, oily fog rolled off the black water, wrapping around the rusted shipping containers of Pier 42.
The rain had turned into a freezing drizzle.
A single yellow spotlight illuminated the entrance to Warehouse B.
Inside, twenty heavily armed mercenaries guarded the perimeter.
In the center of the concrete floor sat Leo Mercer, bruised, shivering, tied to an iron chair.
Above him on the catwalk stood Victor Moretti.
Victor was fifty-eight, dressed in a black leather trench coat, smoking a thick cigar.
His silver hair was slicked back, his face scarred from thirty years of gang warfare.
"Ten minutes until midnight, boy," Victor sneered, blowing smoke down at Leo.
"If Cross doesn't show, you go swimming with a hundred pounds of concrete."
Leo glared up through swollen eyes, spitting blood onto the floor.
"Damian Cross will tear your throat out, Moretti."
Victor laughed, a harsh, grating bark that echoed off the corrugated steel roof.
"Cross is a broken man playing daddy in the suburbs. He doesn't have the stomach for—"
The massive steel bay doors of the warehouse blew inward with the roar of four simultaneous C4 breaching charges.
The shockwave knocked six guards off their feet.
Before the smoke could clear, flashbang grenades detonated in blinding, deafening succession.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Screams erupted through the smoke.
I walked through the shattered entrance like an avatar of vengeance.
I didn't take cover.
I fired with two handguns, dropping three shooters before they could raise their rifles.
Behind me, Dominic’s strike team poured into the breach, laying down disciplined, lethal suppressing fire.
Rounds sparked off iron beams.
Mercenaries fell where they stood.
Victor Moretti dropped his cigar, his eyes widening in pure disbelief.
"Kill him!" Moretti screamed from the catwalk, scrambling backward toward the emergency exit.
"Kill him now!"
I didn't look at the foot soldiers.
My men cleared the floor with ruthless efficiency.
I took the metal stairs to the catwalk three at a time.
A bodyguard stepped out with a combat shotgun.
I ducked beneath the barrel, drove my combat knife through his shoulder, and threw him over the railing to the concrete floor thirty feet below.
Moretti kicked open the heavy iron door leading to the roof.
I pursued him into the freezing rain.
The rooftop overlooked the glittering skyline of Manhattan across the dark river.
Moretti turned, raising a gold-plated Desert Eagle with both hands.
"Stop right there, Cross!" Moretti shouted over the wind.
His trench coat whipped wildly around his legs.
His hands were trembling.
I stopped ten feet away.
My guns were lowered at my sides.
"It’s over, Victor," I said, rain washing the blood from my face.
"Your warehouses in Queens were seized an hour ago."
"Your bank accounts in Nassau are frozen."
"Your men on the docks have surrendered."
Moretti laughed, a desperate, cornered sound.
"You think you won?!" he yelled, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"I still have the girl! Hannah is at your safehouse, isn't she?!"
My eyes didn't flicker.
"Hannah is safe."
"No, she isn't!" Moretti sneered, pulling a small radio detonator from his coat pocket.
"I had my inside man plant a seismic charge beneath the foundations of that Greenwich house three days ago!"
"One press of this button, and your daughters and that little nurse are blown into dust!"
My heart turned to stone.
"You're lying," I said, keeping my voice level.
"Try me, Damian!" Moretti shrieked, raising his thumb over the switch.
A voice cut through the wind behind him.
"He's not lying, Damian."
"He really did plant the bomb."
I looked past Moretti toward the rooftop access door.
Stepping onto the gravel roof was Hannah Mercer.
She was wearing my heavy black overcoat over her bandages, holding a suppressed pistol in both hands.
Her eyes were cold as a winter grave.
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"And I diffused it twenty minutes ago."
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