Chapter 4 - The River and the Remote
The matte-black customized Dodge Ram heavy-duty truck tore through the rear service gates of the Moretti estate at seventy miles an hour, its four-wheel-drive tires throwing frozen gravel thirty feet into the scrub oak.
Inside the reinforced cabin, the only light came from the red tactical display mounted to the dashboard and the rhythmic flash of highway streetlights through the ballistic-tinted glass.
In the passenger seat sat Franco, Dante’s personal enforcer for twelve years, checking the slide on an automatic twelve-gauge shotgun with rhythmic, practiced clicks: clack-slide, clack-slide.
In the crew cab behind them, Elena sat wrapped in Dante’s heavy wool overcoat, her arms wrapped around Teresa.
The little girl didn't look at the floor. She sat with her knees drawn up, her fingers lightly turning the hands of the cracked brass pocket watch Dante had given her to hold.
"Explain the loop again, Teresa," Dante commanded, his eyes locked on the twisting ribbon of two-lane blacktop that followed the frozen banks of the Des Plaines River.
Teresa looked up at the rearview mirror, meeting Dante’s dark eyes in the glass.
"The loop is ninety seconds long, Mr. Moretti," she said, her voice small but eerily steady over the roar of the supercharged engine. "The cleaner with the cart... she passes the doorway at forty seconds. But when the clock jumps, the red light on the smoke detector in the ceiling blinks twice. Every time."
Franco paused his loading. He glanced over his shoulder at the girl, then at Dante. "Smoke detector? The restaurant’s fire suppression system was updated last summer, boss. Those detectors don't blink red unless they’re paired with a localized radio receiver."
"A secondary frequency," Dante said, his jaw tightening until the muscle feathered against his skin. "Silvio didn't just loop the video to blind the monitors. He used the camera's wireless relay to boost the signal for a remote detonator. They aren't waiting for Leo’s car to hit the alley. They’re waiting for the headlights to trip the optical sensor."
"If we drive into that block," Franco said, "we trigger the signal."
"We aren't driving into the block," Dante replied.
He hit the brakes.
The heavy truck slid sideways across the icy gravel of an abandoned industrial boat launch three blocks south of the restaurant, stopping three inches from the rusted iron railing overlooking the black, sluggish river water.
Dante unbuckled his harness, turning around in his seat to face the back.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his secondary encrypted tablet. He unlocked the administrative master console and set it across Teresa’s knees.
"You said your father was a clockmaker," Dante said, his voice dropping into that quiet, solemn pitch. "Did he teach you how to read frequency pulses?"
Teresa looked down at the tablet.
The screen displayed a fluctuating green waveform—the raw wireless traffic bouncing off the restaurant’s localized repeaters.
Her small, calloused thumb reached out. She traced a tiny, jagged spike that repeated every ninety seconds, right when the waveform dipped into a flat valley.
"There," she said, tapping the glass. "That’s where the clock stutters. When the woman’s elbow clears the door, the red light stops blinking for three seconds while the loop restarts."
"A three-second blind window," Franco whispered, his breath whistling through his teeth. "Every minute and a half, the radio receiver goes dark while the memory cache resets."
Dante checked his watch.
4:38 AM.
"Franco, take the south fire escape on foot," Dante commanded, opening his door into the biting lake wind. "You have two minutes to reach the crawlspace beneath the prep kitchen. When Teresa calls the reset window over the radio, cut the primary copper lead on the smoke detector."
Franco racked the shotgun with a clean, lethal snap. "And if Silvio is holding the trigger?"
"Put a slug through his teeth," Dante said.
He looked down at the little girl sitting between the leather seats, her face illuminated by the green glow of the tablet.
"Teresa," Dante said softly. "You are my eyes on this board. Do you understand?"
May you like
She didn't nod like a child. She straightened her narrow shoulders, placed the cracked brass watch beside the tablet, and pressed her small finger against the green waveform.
"Thirty seconds until the cleaner lifts her elbow, Mr. Moretti," she whispered. "Get ready to run."
