Chapter 6 - THE HARBOR AMBUSH
The heat was instantaneous.
Julian’s heavy wool coat pressed over Ren’s back, shielding her from the flying glass and twisted metal shards.
The sound of the blast roared in her ears, leaving a high-pitched ringing in its wake.
Pieces of burning tire dropped into the black river with sharp hisses.
Julian rolled off her instantly.
He was on one knee, his Kimber .45 in his hand before the smoke had even cleared the hood of their SUV.
"Get behind the rear axle," Julian commanded.
Ren scrambled across the wet gravel, keeping low.
She gripped the compact pistol Julian had given her.
Through the drifting black smoke, two black speedboats cut across the river toward Pier 14.
Their twin outboard motors screamed, throwing white foam ten feet into the air.
Men in dark windbreakers stood on the bow decks, leveling automatic weapons.
"Vance's river crew," Julian muttered.
"They aren't here for Derek."
"They're here for the ledger in the duffel bag."
Julian’s lieutenant, Marcus, fell back toward the SUV, firing three controlled bursts from his carbine.
The lead speedboat took hits along its fiberglass hull.
The boat swerved, but the second vessel hit the wooden pilings of Pier 14 with a violent shudder.
Four armed men leaped onto the timber deck.
"Julian Thorne!" a man bellowed over the whine of the engines.
"Drop the bag and we let the girl walk!"
Julian did not answer with words.
He leaned around the rear bumper and fired three rapid rounds.
The lead boarder took two bullets to the chest, falling backward off the pier into the churning, icy water.
The remaining three boarders opened fire.
Rounds chewed through the side panels of the armored SUV, thumping into the Kevlar lining like heavy hail.
Julian turned his head toward Ren.
"Can you make the warehouse door?"
Ren looked across the thirty yards of open gravel.
The doorway where Derek and Cassandra were trapped was the only cover.
"I can make it," she said.
Her pulse was pounding in her throat, but her hands were steady.
"On three," Julian said.
"One."
"Two."
"Three!"
Julian stepped out from behind the vehicle, laying down a suppressing fire that forced the two gunmen to dive behind an overturned forklift.
Ren sprinted.
Her torn ivory dress caught the wind, dragging through the gravel.
She reached the brick threshold and dove inside.
She rolled onto the dirty floorboards just as a line of automatic fire stitched across the exterior brick, spraying red dust over her hair.
Julian backed through the doorway right behind her.
He slammed the heavy oak door shut and dropped the four-inch iron bar into place.
The wood shook immediately as bullets punched into the heavy timber from outside.
Marcus, Julian's lieutenant, staggered into the back corner of the room, clutching his thigh.
Blood was pooling through his dark trousers.
"Sir," Marcus grunted, his teeth gritted in agony.
"Main road is blocked."
"They've got three vehicles staging at the gate."
Julian knelt beside his man, tying a quick tourniquet around the wound using Marcus's leather belt.
"Conserve your ammunition," Julian said.
Ren looked around the trashed office.
Derek was still zip-tied by the safe, groaning and bleeding from his shoulder.
Cassandra was curled into a ball behind the filing cabinets, her hands over her ears, sobbing silently.
Ren walked over to the desk.
The leather duffel bag lay on the floorboards where Cassandra had dropped it.
The zipper was half-open.
Ren looked inside.
Beside the stacks of cash lay a small, black spiral notebook bound with thick electrical tape.
Ren reached in and pulled it out.
She flipped the first page.
It was not a collection of loan debts.
It was a list of shipping container numbers, dates, and port entry codes spanning five years.
Every entry bore two signatures.
Derek’s sloppy scrawl.
And an embossed stamp that made Ren’s breath freeze in her lungs:
VANCE-STERLING LOGISTICS CORP.
"Julian," Ren called out, her voice cutting through the thumping gunfire outside.
Julian turned around.
"What is it?"
"My father's name is on these manifests," she said.
Her eyes were wide, burning with confusion and sudden terror.
"My father died eight years ago."
"Derek was nineteen."
Julian walked across the room to her side.
He looked down at the black notebook in her hand.
The gunfire outside abruptly ceased.
A loudspeaker clicked on from the pier outside.
A smooth, cultured voice echoed across the water:
"Ren, sweetheart."
May you like
"Drop the notebook and come outside."
"Your father wants to see you."
