Chapter 14 - Shadows on the River
While the legal battle over the rail spur was won in the state capital, physical tension along the southern river trade routes reached a boiling point.
Midnight on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway was pitch black, broken only by the searchlights of commercial towboats pushing heavily laden steel barges through the locks and dams.
A Kincaid Logistics tugboat, the Iron River, chugged steadily against the current, carrying three flatbed cars loaded with structural steel intended for the new technical school expansion.
In the pilot house, Captain Miller gripped the wooden steering wheel, his eyes locked on the radar screen glowing green in the dark.
"Something's sitting dead ahead in the narrow channel, captain," the first mate muttered, pointing urgently through the rain-streaked windshield.
Roughly five hundred yards ahead, completely unlit and anchored right in the center of the restricted navigation channel, sat a massive, unmarked commercial barge, blocking the entire width of the river.
"Hard a-starboard!" Miller roared, yanking the wheel over.
The Iron River groaned as its massive diesel engines reversed thrust, churning the dark river water into white foam. The tugboat veered sharply to the right, scraping heavily against a hidden concrete mooring dolphin with a metallic shriek that echoed off the riverbanks.
Moments later, three unmarked speedboats darted out from the deep shadows of the shoreline, matching speed with the struggling tugboat. Figures wearing tactical wet suits and dark helmets leaped agilely from the speedboats onto the lower deck of the Iron River, securing heavy tow cables to the tug's bollards.
They weren't ordinary river pirates. They were corporate private security contractors—mercenaries hired by Victoria Sterling-Cross to hijack the structural steel shipment.
Before the boarding party could reach the pilot house door, however, the heavy steel security hatch flew open from the inside.
Ryker Kincaid stepped out onto the wet deck, flanked by two rugged Kincaid site supervisors carrying heavy iron pry bars and tactical flashlights.
"You boys took a wrong turn," Ryker said, his voice cutting through the roar of the river engines. "This isn't a corporate shipping lane anymore. It's private trust water."
The lead mercenary raised a non-lethal stun weapon, but before he could pull the trigger, a blinding arc of red and blue light flooded the riverbanks.
Two state wildlife patrol boats and an armed county tactical unit—led personally by Sheriff Dalton Reeves standing on the bow of the lead cutter—surrounded the speedboats from all sides, their loudspeakers blaring across the water:
"This is Sheriff Reeves! Cut your engines and put your hands where we can see them, or we will open fire!"
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The mercenaries froze, looked at the armed deputies surrounding them, and slowly dropped their weapons to the deck.
Another trap had been sprung, and Victoria's offshore mercenaries had just become state prisoners.
