Chapter 2 - The Calumet Slip
The rain had turned into a thick, sulfurous fog by the time the armored sedan crossed the bridge over the Calumet River. The water below looked like old oil, thick and motionless beneath the yellow glare of the sodium lights. On either side of the road, the gray concrete cylinders of the abandoned grain elevators rose against the sky like the pillars of a drowned city.
Nathan sat in the rear seat, his submachine gun resting flat across his knees, the black steel cold against the palms of his hands. He didn't look at the road; he looked at the dashboard clock. 3:14 a.m.
"The main gate is locked from the inside, Boss," Caleb said, his hands steady on the wheel as he guided the heavy sedan down the gravel track toward Terminal Four. "Two guards at the shanty. They’ve got long coats and standard-issue shotguns. They look like private security, but they’re standing like infantry candidates."
"They're mercenary labor, Caleb," Nathan said, his voice level. "Filippo’s people from New York don't hire locals when they're moving high-value inventory. They bring the boys from the docks who don't know the street names. Drive through the gate."
"Through it?"
"Through it," Nathan repeated.
The armored sedan didn't slow down. The front bumper—a custom-welded three-inch steel bar backed by reinforced chassis mounts—struck the chain-link gate at forty miles per hour. The metal fence didn't just open; it tore away from the concrete pillars with a deafening screech of snapping wire and iron rivets, the sedan crashing onto the gravel yard of the terminal without losing traction.
The guard shanty exploded into motion. One of the men in the long coats lunged toward the window, his shotgun rising, but Caleb swung the sedan’s rear end around in a violent, muddy drift, the heavy reinforced panel catching the guard in the chest and throwing him ten feet into a pile of discarded shipping pallets.
The second guard fired twice, the buckshot rattling against the armored glass of the driver’s side window like heavy hail, leaving two small white stars in the reinforced laminate but failing to penetrate.
Nathan threw his door open before the sedan had even come to a full stop. He stepped into the freezing rain, his boots sinking into the black mud of the yard, the submachine gun tucked firmly into his shoulder. He didn't fire a burst; he fired two single, disciplined shots. The first caught the second guard in the shoulder, dropping him to his knees; the second shattered the primary spotlight above the warehouse door, plunging the yard into a dark, blue-gray shadow.
"Caleb, check the shanty for the gate log," Nathan commanded, his eyes scanning the long, corrugated steel front of the warehouse.
At the far end of the pier, beneath the orange frame of a massive gantry crane, a single light shone from the small, glass-walled shipping office. Inside, the silhouette of a man in a charcoal coat was visible, his hand holding a telephone receiver to his ear, his face pale against the dark glass.
It was Grant Mercer.
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He had seen the gate breach. He didn't try to run toward the cars; he turned around, shoved open a heavy iron fire door at the back of the office, and disappeared into the dark interior of the main warehouse.
Nathan walked toward the door, his boots loud against the wet gravel, the rain washing the grease and soot from his vest. "Grant!" he called out, his voice cutting through the roar of the wind off the lake. "You have sixty seconds to bring Evelyn Carter out of that building before I turn the lights off for good."
