Chapter 4 - THE SIREN ON SLIP FORTY-EIGHT
The wind off Lake Michigan was brutal.
Freezing spray misted across the wooden planks of Navy Pier's restricted dock.
The public boardwalk was empty in the storm.
Only the rhythmic clanking of aluminum halyards against metal masts echoed across the harbor.
Declan stepped out of the Mercedes onto the wet timber.
Liam fell in behind him, his hand inside his leather jacket, unhooking the holster strap.
Norah stepped out last.
Declan turned and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.
"Stay in the car with the doors locked."
"No," she said instantly.
Her jaw was trembling, but her chin was held high.
"She's my sister, Declan."
"If she's scared, she needs to see my face."
Declan searched her eyes for three seconds.
He saw the fear, but underneath it lay an iron spine he had never noticed during her three years behind a desk.
"Two paces behind Liam," Declan ordered.
"If I say down, you drop flat on the timber."
"Understood."
They moved down the gated ramp to Slip Forty-Eight.
A hundred-foot luxury yacht, The Golden Sovereign, rocked heavily against its rubber fenders.
Its lower cabin windows were dark.
Suddenly, an electric horn sounded twice from the vessel’s aft deck.
A yellow strobe began flashing above the salon entrance.
The shore power had just died.
A hatch swung open on the rear deck.
A broad-shouldered man in a yellow rain slicker stepped out onto the teak floorboards.
He held an umbrella in one hand and a heavy flashlight in the other.
"Hey! Port authority!" the man shouted into the rain toward the gate.
"The damn breakers tripped again!"
Declan did not answer.
He walked up the floating gangway with long, deliberate strides.
The man turned his flashlight toward the sound of boots on wet wood.
The beam hit Declan’s face.
The guard’s jaw dropped.
"Who the hell are—"
Liam closed the distance in two seconds.
He didn't draw his gun.
He caught the man’s flashlight arm, twisted it behind his shoulder, and drove the guard's forehead into the yacht’s fiberglass bulkhead.
A dull crack echoed through the rain.
The guard went limp and slithered down onto the deck.
Liam dragged him into the shadow of the engine hatch.
Declan tested the brass handle of the salon door.
Locked.
He took half a step back and planted the heel of his heavy boot directly beside the lock cylinder.
The teak frame shattered with a sharp snap.
Declan shoved the door open.
The cabin interior was warm, smelling of stale coffee, leather, and antiseptic.
A steep wooden stairway led down to the staterooms below deck.
From the bottom of the stairs came a faint, high-pitched beep.
A medical monitor.
Norah pushed past Liam.
"Clara!" she screamed.
"Norah, wait!" Declan barked.
She didn't listen.
She took the stairs three at a time, her wet coat flying behind her.
Declan followed directly behind her, his hand clearing the Sig Sauer from beneath his arm.
At the end of the lower hallway, a door stood ajar.
Inside lay a girl on a narrow bunk bed.
She was pale as parchment, her dark hair matted with sweat.
An IV pole stood beside the bed, but the plastic tubing had been pulled out, dripping clear fluid onto the carpet.
"Clara!" Norah dropped to her knees beside the mattress.
She gathered the girl into her arms, weeping uncontrollably.
"Clara, baby, look at me."
The girl’s eyelids fluttered.
Her lips were cracked and dry.
"Norah... it hurts..."
Declan knelt beside them.
He checked the girl’s pulse at the carotid artery.
It was racing.
Weak and thready.
"Her blood sugar is through the floor," Declan said.
He scanned the small stateroom.
On a vanity table sat a black medical kit with a digital cooler.
Two glass vials of insulin rested inside on ice packs.
Declan grabbed the kit and handed it to Norah.
"Can you do it?"
Norah’s hands were shaking so hard she dropped the syringe on the bed.
"I can't... my fingers..."
Declan picked up the syringe.
He had spent two years in the Balkans before his father brought him home to take the docks.
He had patched bullet wounds in dark basements.
He drew the precise units from the vial without a tremor.
"Hold her arm still," Declan said softly.
Norah pinned her sister’s trembling forearm against the sheets.
Declan pinched the skin of the upper arm and slid the needle in at a forty-five-degree angle.
He depressed the plunger smoothly.
Clara gasped, then relaxed back into the pillows, her breathing evening out.
Norah pressed her face into her sister’s neck, her sobs filling the small cabin.
"Thank you," she wept into the sheets.
"Thank you, Declan."
It was the first time she had ever called him by his first name.
Declan stood up.
He felt an unfamiliar warmth loosen the knot of iron in his chest.
Then his phone rang.
It was Liam from the upper deck.
"Declan, get up here."
Liam’s voice was dead flat.
"Now."
Declan climbed the stairs.
He stepped out onto the wind-whipped rear deck of the yacht.
Navy Pier’s entrance gate was blocked by four black Escalades.
Their high beams were pointed directly at the gangway of Slip Forty-Eight.
Standing in front of the center vehicle was not Julian Vance.
It was Marcus Vance.
Julian’s father.
The patriarch of the Vance syndicate and the primary political boss of Cook County.
Beside Marcus stood six men holding short-barreled automatic shotguns.
Marcus Vance raised an umbrella and called across the water:
"Declan Hayes!"
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"You're trespassing on private maritime property!"
"Step off that boat with your hands empty, or we scuttle it with everyone on board!"
