Chapter 6 - THE RED HOOK CONNECTION
The logging culvert was narrow, smelling of frozen mud and dead leaves.
I crawled on my hands and knees, my dress shoes lost in the snow, my stockings shredded by sharp gravel.
My mother crawled behind me, her breathing ragged, one hand gripping my ankle to stay oriented in the pitch black.
Behind us, outside the mouth of the pipe, gunfire erupted with the force of an avalanche.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Heavy machine guns chewing through the cedar ruins.
The distinctive, heavy crack-crack-crack of Adrian's .45 barking in controlled, deadly rhythm.
Then came a violent, concussive BOOM that shook the earth around the culvert.
Adrian had triggered the secondary fuel charges.
The heat rushed into the pipe behind us, pushing a wave of warm air and black smoke against our backs.
"Keep moving, Mom!" I yelled, coughing on the fumes.
"Don't stop!"
We broke through the end of the culvert into the freezing darkness of the gravel pit.
The wind hit us like a physical blow.
My bare feet sank three inches into the icy slush.
Fifty yards away, parked beneath the shadow of the concrete highway overpass, sat the black Suburban.
Its dark windows were frosted over with ice.
I dragged my mother through the drifts, my muscles screaming in agony.
We reached the rear bumper.
I dropped to my knees in the snow, my frozen fingers clawing beneath the trailer hitch.
My knuckles struck cold metal.
The magnetic key box.
I ripped the box open, pulled out the electronic key fob, and hit the unlock button.
The Suburban’s amber lights flashed twice.
The heavy doors clicked open with a pressurized thud.
I shoved my mother into the passenger seat, turned the heater to maximum, and vaulted into the driver's seat.
I hit the push-button ignition.
The six-liter V8 engine roared to life with a deep, reassuring rumble.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Through the trees, the ridge was blazing with orange fire.
And emerging from the dark timberline, limping heavily through the deep drifts, was a solitary figure.
Adrian.
His tactical sweater was torn open at the chest, revealing a jagged shrapnel cut across his ribs.
His left arm hung limp at his side, dark blood dripping from his fingertips onto the white snow.
In his right hand, he still clutched his empty Kimber.
He collapsed to one knee thirty feet from the vehicle, his head hanging low against his chest.
I threw the Suburban into reverse, slamming the gas pedal.
The heavy tires threw up a rooster tail of gravel and slush as I backed within four feet of his body.
I kicked my door open into the storm.
"Adrian!" I screamed, sliding across the icy ground.
I grabbed him under the arms, hauling his massive weight upward with everything I had left.
"Get up! Adrian, get up!"
He looked up through a curtain of blood running from his scalp.
His amber eyes were glazed with shock, but when he saw my face, his fingers locked around my forearm with bruising strength.
"Emma..." he rasped.
"You stayed."
"Shut up and get in the truck!" I sobbed, dragging him toward the open door.
My mother leaned across the center console, helping me haul his heavy torso onto the leather rear bench.
Adrian tumbled inside with a ragged groan, clutching his bleeding side.
I slammed the door, jumped behind the wheel, and threw the transmission into drive.
The Suburban surged out of the gravel pit onto Interstate 90, heading east toward the glittering skyline of Chicago at ninety miles per hour.
In the rearview mirror, Adrian lay on his back, gasping for air as my mother pressed a clean wool blanket against his chest wound.
"The phone," Adrian wheezed, his bloody hand reaching toward his pocket.
"Emma... the satellite phone in the glove box."
I popped the latch on the dashboard.
Inside lay a rugged, encrypted satellite terminal.
The screen was already blinking with an incoming priority call from an unlisted number.
I hit the speaker button and set the device on the console.
A deep, gravelly voice echoed through the cabin:
"Don Vale."
It was Enzo, Adrian's chief of personal security.
"Speak, Enzo," Adrian rasped from the back seat.
"We breached Dominic Moretti's estate in Barrington twenty minutes ago, boss," Enzo reported.
"Moretti's private vault was unlocked."
"We found the original bills of lading for the 18th Street warehouse."
"And?" Adrian asked, his voice tightening.
"It wasn't municipal bonds, boss," Enzo said, his tone turning dead grave.
"The containers held eighty million dollars in stolen federal gold certificates."
"Stolen from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago during the 2018 transit robbery."
I nearly swerved off the road.
Eighty million dollars in federal gold.
Hidden beneath the flour bins in my mother's bakery.
"And there's something else, boss," Enzo continued.
"We found the bank transfer records."
"The firm that hired the mercenaries to kill Mrs. Hayes six years ago..."
Enzo paused, his breath hitching over the satellite link.
"It wasn't Dominic Moretti."
"It wasn't Julian Vance."
"The wire transfer originated from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands."
"Account Name: Vance-Caldwell Holdings."
My mother froze in the passenger seat.
Her face went completely white under the dashboard lights.
"Caldwell..." my mother whispered, her voice trembling with absolute horror.
I looked at her.
"Mom? Who is Caldwell?"
My mother slowly turned her head toward the back seat where Adrian lay bleeding.
"Richard Caldwell," my mother choked out.
"Your father's brother."
"My uncle?" I gasped, my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
"Your father didn't die of a heart attack ten years ago, Emma," my mother revealed, tears streaming down her face.
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"Richard poisoned him with digitalis to take control of the family bakery."
"And Richard has been sitting on Adrian's board of directors for three years."
