Chapter 5 – THE FREIGHTER
The realization hit the interior of the armored SUV like a physical blow.
They were shipping him out of the country.
Dante’s jaw locked. He leaned forward, tapping Marco’s shoulder urgently. “Hit the sirens, Marco. We don’t have time for traffic.”
Marco flipped a switch on the console. A hidden, high-decibel police siren wailed from the grill of the SUV, and strobe lights flashed from the headlights. Cars scrambled to part like the Red Sea, allowing the massive black vehicle to tear through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel at terrifying speeds.
Clare gripped the leather seat, her heart pounding a frantic, chaotic rhythm against her ribs.
Ten years. She had spent ten years mourning a father who had been alive the entire time, living in the shadows to protect her. And now, Arthur Foster was going to rip him away from her permanently just to spite Dante.
“We’ll get him, Clare,” Dante promised, his hand covering hers, his grip warm and absolute. “Arthur is arrogant. He relies on his wealth to insulate him. He doesn’t expect a direct, violent assault on his operations.”
“He expects the FBI to have you in cuffs right now,” Clare agreed, taking a shaky breath, drawing strength from his confidence.
Twenty minutes later, the SUV tore off the Staten Island Expressway, navigating the desolate, industrial roads leading toward the massive commercial shipping ports.
The air smelled of saltwater, diesel exhaust, and rusted metal.
“Pier 42 is coming up, Boss,” Marco announced, killing the sirens and killing the headlights, plunging the SUV into stealth mode as they approached the perimeter.
Dante peered through the tinted windshield.
The pier was a sprawling, illuminated fortress of towering cranes and thousands of stacked, colorful shipping containers. Moored at the edge of the concrete dock was a massive, ocean-faring freighter, its engines humming a low, vibrating rumble that shook the ground.
“The Foster Reliance,” Dante read the name painted on the side of the massive ship. “She’s prepped for departure. They’re casting off the mooring lines.”
“We’re too late,” Clare gasped, panic rising in her throat as she saw dockworkers preparing to pull the heavy gangway away from the ship’s hull.
“No, we’re not,” Dante said coldly.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, reaching into the compartment beneath his seat. He pulled out a sleek, suppressed submachine gun, checking the magazine with practiced, lethal efficiency. He handed a secondary handgun to Marco.
“Marco, take out the perimeter guards silently. Do not let them raise the alarm,” Dante ordered.
“Yes, Boss.”
Dante turned to Clare. His dark eyes were fierce, protective, and completely focused.
“Stay in the car, Clare,” Dante said softly. “Lock the doors. If I’m not back in ten minutes, Marco will drive you to the safe house.”
“I’m not staying in the car while my father is on that ship, Dante,” Clare fired back, grabbing his arm. “I haven’t seen him in ten years. I am not losing him again.”
“Clare, it’s a tactical sweep of a hostile freighter. It’s a warzone,” Dante argued, though his voice lacked its usual commanding edge when she challenged him.
“I know what my father looks like. I know how he thinks,” Clare insisted, her green eyes blazing with defiance. “If he knows they’re going to kill him at sea, he won’t be sitting quietly in a container. He’ll hide. He’ll fight. You need me to find him.”
Dante stared at her for a long, agonizing second. He knew she was right. Marcus Bennett was a brilliant, slippery survivor. Finding him on a massive freighter would take hours without someone who knew his patterns.
“Stay exactly three steps behind me,” Dante finally relented, grabbing a heavy tactical flashlight from the console. “If shooting starts, you drop to the deck and you don’t move. Understood?”
“Understood,” Clare nodded, her hands shaking slightly.
They slipped out of the SUV into the freezing, salty air.
Marco moved like a ghost through the shadows, neutralizing two armed private security guards near the perimeter gate before they even realized they were under attack.
Dante led Clare through the maze of stacked shipping containers, moving swiftly toward the massive steel gangway connecting the dock to the freighter.
“The ship is too big to search compartment by compartment,” Dante whispered as they pressed themselves against a rusted container near the ramp. “Where would they hold a high-value hostage?”
Clare closed her eyes, thinking back to the stories her father used to tell her when she was a little girl. He used to smuggle untaxed goods through the ports before he got in too deep with the Commission.
“He told me once that the safest place to hide contraband on a ship isn’t in the cargo hold,” Clare murmured, opening her eyes. “It’s in the engine room maintenance shafts. It’s loud, dangerous, and the crew rarely goes down there during departure.”
Dante nodded, processing the information. “Then we go to the engine room.”
They moved up the heavy steel gangway, slipping past a distracted deckhand, and entered the cavernous, brightly lit interior of the freighter.
The ship was a labyrinth of narrow metal corridors and steep, grated stairwells. The deafening roar of the massive diesel engines masked their footsteps perfectly.
Dante led the way, his weapon raised, navigating toward the lower decks with lethal precision. They encountered two heavily armed Foster mercenaries near the engine room doors. Dante took them down with two silenced shots before they could even draw their weapons.
They breached the heavy bulkhead door leading into the engine room.
The heat was instantaneous and suffocating. The noise was a physical force, rattling their teeth. Massive, three-story-high pistons pumped violently in the center of the room, slick with oil.
Dante scanned the chaotic, multi-level room with his flashlight.
“There!” Clare shouted over the roar, pointing to a narrow, grated catwalk suspended high above the main engines.
Two men in dark tactical gear were dragging a struggling, older man along the catwalk toward a heavy, steel maintenance hatch.
Even from a distance, even after ten years, Clare recognized the stubborn set of his shoulders.
It was Marcus Bennett.
“Dad!” Clare screamed, the sound tearing from her throat, though it was swallowed entirely by the roar of the engines.
Dante didn’t hesitate. He sprinted toward the metal stairs leading up to the catwalk, taking them three at a time, his weapon raised.
The mercenaries saw him coming. One of them released Marcus, drew a handgun, and fired down at Dante.
The bullet pinged wildly off the metal stairs, missing Dante by inches.
Dante returned fire with terrifying accuracy. A three-round burst took the mercenary in the chest, sending him plummeting off the catwalk, crashing into the oily machinery below.
The second mercenary panicked. He realized he was outgunned.
Instead of fighting Dante, he grabbed Marcus Bennett by the collar of his jacket, hauled him to the edge of the catwalk, and held his pistol directly against the older man’s temple.
“Drop the gun, Romano!” the mercenary screamed, his voice barely audible over the engines. “Or I blow his brains all over the deck!”
Dante froze halfway up the stairs, his weapon still aimed perfectly at the mercenary’s head.
Clare reached the bottom of the stairs, staring up in sheer, unadulterated terror.
Her father was battered, his face bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn. But his eyes were wide, alive, and filled with absolute shock as he looked down and saw his daughter standing in the engine room.
“Clare?” Marcus croaked, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Let him go!” Clare yelled at the mercenary, tears streaming down her face.
“I said drop it!” the mercenary roared, pressing the gun harder against Marcus’s skull.
Dante didn’t lower his weapon. He knew that if he dropped the gun, the mercenary would kill them all. It was a standoff.
But Marcus Bennett hadn’t survived ten years on the run by being a helpless victim.
Marcus looked down at Dante, then at his daughter. A fiercely proud, stubborn smile broke across his bruised face.
“I love you, Clare,” Marcus yelled over the engines.
Then, Marcus Bennett threw his entire body weight backward, violently headbutting the mercenary square in the face.
The mercenary cried out in pain, stumbling backward, his gun firing harmlessly into the ceiling.
Dante didn’t miss his window.
He fired a single, suppressed shot.
The bullet took the mercenary perfectly in the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him unconscious against the steel railing.
Dante sprinted up the remaining stairs, kicking the mercenary’s weapon away, and hauled Marcus Bennett to his feet.
“Are you hit, Marcus?” Dante demanded, checking the older man for gunshot wounds.
“I’m fine, Dante, you terrifying idiot,” Marcus coughed, gripping Dante’s shoulder gratefully. “You brought my daughter to a gunfight?”
“She wouldn’t stay in the car,” Dante smirked, a rare, genuine smile touching his lips.
Clare scrambled up the stairs, completely ignoring the unconscious mercenary. She threw her arms around her father’s neck, sobbing uncontrollably, burying her face in his shoulder.
Marcus held her incredibly tight, burying his face in her dark hair, tears of profound relief streaming down his weathered cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Marcus wept. “I’m so sorry I left you.”
“You’re alive,” Clare sobbed, holding onto him as if he might vanish again. “That’s all that matters. You’re alive.”
They stood there on the catwalk, suspended above the roaring engines, a family finally reunited after a decade of lies and grief.
“We have to go,” Dante interrupted gently, keeping his weapon raised, scanning the catwalk. “Arthur Foster will realize the ship hasn’t departed yet. He’ll send more men.”
Marcus nodded, pulling back from Clare, wiping his eyes. “Dante is right. We need to get off this ship before they seal the bulkhead doors.”
They hurried down the metal stairs, Dante leading the way, Marcus keeping a protective arm around Clare.
They reached the heavy bulkhead door leading out of the engine room. Dante pushed it open, stepping out into the narrow, dimly lit corridor.
But as they stepped out, the ship’s massive, blaring emergency alarm suddenly shattered the air.
AWOOOOGA. AWOOOOGA.
Red strobe lights began flashing violently in the corridor.
“They know we’re here,” Dante growled, raising his weapon.
“No, they don’t,” Marcus said, his face going completely pale as he stared down the corridor.
Clare frowned, looking at her father. “What do you mean?”
“That isn’t a security alarm, Clare,” Marcus whispered, absolute terror gripping his voice. “I worked on these freighters for years. I know that alarm.”
Dante turned to look at Marcus, his dark eyes narrowing. “What is it, Marcus?”
“It’s a scuttle alarm,” Marcus breathed, looking at Dante with horrified realization. “Arthur Foster isn’t sending more men to secure the ship. He’s sinking it with us inside.”
Share
