Chapter 35 - Fire and Iron
The second floor of the Maritime Exchange was an inferno of shattering wood and ricocheting rounds. Through our encrypted audio feed, the sound of boots stomping across marble and the harsh shouts of armed mercenaries echoed with brutal clarity.
"He's pinned down near the records room!" Marcus shouted, already racking the slide on a high-powered tactical carbine from the weapons rack beneath the dashboard. "Elena, take the wheel! Keep the engine running!"
"Wait!" I snapped, grabbing Marcus’s forearm before he could kick the van door open. "Look at the thermal feed! There are eight men between him and the front exit, but the eastern fire escape leads directly to the subterranean freight tunnel beneath the alley! If you go in through the front, you walk straight into an ambush!"
Marcus froze, his sharp eyes darting to the tactical map on the tablet screen. "The freight tunnel has an iron security gate welded shut twenty years ago."
"Luca has high-grade breaching foam in his tactical pouch," I said, my mind calculating with ruthless speed. I grabbed the radio headset, pressing the transmit button. "Luca! Abandon the front stairwell! Take the eastern utility corridor down to the coal chutes! Blow the gate at the drainage junction! We will meet you at the alley grate!"
A two-second pause hung in the air, filled only with the deafening roar of automatic weapons fire tearing through the office walls.
"Copy that, little bird," Luca’s gravelly voice replied through heavy, ragged breaths. "Moving now."
On the monitor, Luca’s green marker shifted abruptly, abandoning the main corridor and cutting through the interior drywall of the executive offices. Two gunshots rang out—quick, clean double-taps—followed by the heavy collapse of an armed guard. Luca was carving his way through Sterling’s private security with the cold, lethal efficiency of a cornered predator.
I threw the surveillance van into gear, stomping on the accelerator. The heavy tires shrieked against the wet asphalt as I whipped the vehicle around the corner, plunging down the narrow, dimly lit cobblestone alley behind the exchange. The rain was coming down in blinding torrents, the wipers struggling to clear the glass.
Fifty yards ahead, beneath a flickering sodium streetlamp, a heavy iron storm grate groaned.
A deafening, muffled CRACK echoed from beneath the street as Luca’s breaching charge severed the rusted hinges. A cloud of gray smoke and pulverized concrete erupted into the rain. A split second later, the iron grate was shoved violently upward, crashing onto the wet cobblestones with a heavy clatter.
Luca hauled himself out of the underground opening, rolling onto the street. His black sweater was torn along the left ribcage, smeared with brick dust and dark streaks of engine grease, but his right hand held a secure, waterproof titanium flash drive wrapped in steel casing.
Behind him, two armed mercenaries burst out of the exchange’s rear fire exit, raising submachine guns.
"Down!" Marcus bellowed, leaning out of the passenger window and firing three precision bursts from his carbine. The muzzle flash illuminated the dark alley in blinding strobes. The two gunmen collapsed back into the doorway, clutching their limbs as the suppressing fire chewed through the brickwork around them.
Luca sprinted the remaining twenty feet, diving through the sliding side door of the van just as I slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The van surged forward, tires spinning against the wet stone before catching traction, rocketing out of the alleyway onto the open avenue just as the distant sirens of the NYPD began to wail in the distance.
Marcus slammed the reinforced sliding door shut and engaged the deadbolts.
I glanced into the rearview mirror, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles burned white. Luca was sitting on the floorboards, leaning his back against the metal equipment rack, his chest heaving with deep, ragged gasps. Blood was trickling from a shallow graze along his left cheekbone, dripping down his strong jawline, but his dark obsidian eyes were blazing with savage, triumphant victory.
He held up the titanium flash drive, catching my eye in the mirror. A breathless, wicked smirk curved his lips.
"We got them, Elena," Luca whispered, his voice hoarse from smoke. "Every off-shore account, every fraudulent audit, and every bribe Julian Sterling ever paid in this city. It’s over."
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I exhaled a long, shuddering breath, tears of pure relief stinging my eyes as I steered the van through the rainy streets toward safety. "I told you not to get shot, Luca Rossi."
Luca chuckled, wincing slightly as he pressed a sterile gauze pad to his cheek. "It was just a scratch, Mrs. Rossi. And I believe I still have a tea party to attend."
