Chapter 5 - Poison in the House
The command center on the twenty-second floor of the Voss Maritime Tower was deserted at four in the morning, save for the hum of giant display screens and the low chatter of two trusted night-shift dispatchers.
Evelyn sat before the harbor master console, a steaming mug of black coffee untouched beside her. Her ribs throbbed with a persistent, gnawing ache, but the adrenaline surging through her veins acted as a chemical shield against the pain.
On the radar map, she watched the blip representing The North Star slow its approach.
Her diversion order had worked. The container vessel had halted its run toward Berth Seven and swung wide toward the anchorage buoy three miles off the harbor entrance, awaiting the fictitious hull inspection team.
Suddenly, her secure radio crackled with static.
“Nolan, report,” Evelyn said into the headset.
Gunfire ripped through the receiver—sharp, staccato bursts of automatic rifle fire, followed by the deep, booming roar of Nolan’s .45.
“We’re inside the pump house,” Dominic’s strained voice came through. “Two hostiles down. One surrendered. Boss is clearing the back holding cells. We have Martin!”
Relief washed over Evelyn so intensely she nearly slumped against the console. “Is he alive?”
“Beat up pretty bad, but he’s breathing,” Dominic replied over the sound of breaking glass. “He’s got the backup drive in his coat lining. Boss is bringing him out to the SUV now. We’re heading for the harbor—”
The radio went abruptly dead.
Not static. A clean, deliberate signal termination.
Evelyn frowned, checking the radio frequencies. The fiber-optic repeater on the building’s roof had just been physically severed.
Behind her, the heavy glass doors of the executive suite chimed.
The electronic lock turned green.
Evelyn slowly turned her chair around.
Standing in the entryway, shedding a wet trench coat, was Marcus Sterling.
He didn't look like a traitor caught in the act. He was handsome, thirty-five, with slicked-back brown hair and the easy, predatory smile of a man who believed he had outsmarted fate itself. In his right hand, he held a silenced Sig Sauer 9mm, held casually at his side.
“Good morning, Evelyn,” Marcus said smoothly, stepping into the room. “You’re up early. Especially for a woman with two cracked ribs.”
Evelyn didn’t move. Her heart hammered against her throat, but her expression remained ice.
“So it was you in Warehouse Twelve,” she said.
“I didn't want to hurt you, little sister-in-law,” Marcus said, sighing as he walked slowly toward the console, his leather loafers clicking against the tile. “If you had just stayed at your charity luncheons where you belong, none of this would be happening. But you had to go digging through Keene’s old paper ledgers. You always were too smart for Nolan’s good.”
“Nolan gave you everything, Marcus,” Evelyn said, stalling for time as her right hand crept slowly toward the underside of the desk where Nolan kept an emergency alarm trigger. “He treated you like blood. He made you a partner.”
“He made me his lackey!” Marcus snapped, the calm veneer cracking, revealing the bitter, festering rot underneath. “Thirty years of living in Nolan Voss’s shadow! Everyone bows to the great, terrifying Nolan Voss. The king of the docks. While I did the real work! I organized the logistics, I balanced the unions, I kept the grease flowing through the wheels! And what do I get? A corner office and a seat at his dinner table?”
“You get loyalty,” Evelyn countered coldly. “Something you clearly know nothing about.”
“Loyalty doesn’t buy private islands in the Mediterranean,” Marcus chuckled, raising the pistol, aiming it directly at Evelyn’s forehead. “Take your hand away from that alarm button under the drawer, Evelyn. I installed the security system in this building five years ago. I cut the feed ten minutes ago. No one is coming.”
Evelyn slowly lifted both hands into the air, keeping her breathing controlled so her ribs wouldn't betray her agony.
“You’re too late anyway,” she said. “Nolan has Martin Keene. He has the bank codes. And The North Star is quarantined. You have nothing.”
Marcus smiled—a thin, grotesque curve of his lips.
“You think The North Star was the only play?” Marcus whispered. “I knew Nolan would figure out the ship eventually. The ammonium nitrate aboard The North Star was bait to tie up the Coast Guard. The real shipment isn't on the water, Evelyn.”
Evelyn’s blood went cold. “What did you do?”
“Two tons of military C-4 explosives are sitting inside an unmarked refrigerated truck parked directly beneath the foundation pillars of Pier Four,” Marcus said with perverse pride. “Right beneath Nolan’s flagship terminal. In twenty minutes, a cellular detonator will trigger that charge. The entire terminal—the offices, the dry docks, twenty years of Voss history—will collapse into Boston Harbor.”
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He stepped closer, cocking the hammer of the gun.
“And Nolan will arrive just in time to watch it burn, right before the feds arrest him for international arms trafficking. As for you, Evelyn... tragic casualty of a dockworkers’ gang retaliation. Nolan will be broken. A hollow man. And I will step in to claim what should have been mine from the start.”
