Chapter 6 - Terminal 4
The rain had stopped, replaced by a dense, low-hanging river fog that swallowed the rusted iron beams of Shipping Terminal 4.
Rachel pulled her squad car behind a row of rotting wooden shipping crates two hundred yards from the main warehouse entrance. The silence of the abandoned docks was eerie, broken only by the rhythmic drip of water from rusted roof gutters into the river below.
Her radio buzzed with low static. "Brooks... do you read... coordinates received from... Lily's drawing..."
The signal cut out completely. Marcus's voice vanished into white noise.
Rachel drew her sidearm, pulling her tactical flashlight close to her cheek in a low-ready stance. She carefully stepped through a shattered loading dock door, her boots making zero sound against the concrete floor.
The air inside smelled of creosote, engine oil, and wet river silt.
High above, catwalks crisscrossed the cavernous ceiling like spiderwebs. Down below, heavy wooden crates and rusted shipping containers formed a dark maze.
Then she heard it.
A heavy metallic thud, followed by a coarse, angry male voice echoing from the back of the facility near the river sluice gates.
"Where is the book, Sarah?!" Victor Vance shouted, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls. "You think you're clever?! You think locking the safe and hiding my ledger is going to save you?!"
Rachel moved with feline grace, stepping from container to container, closing the distance toward the sound.
Through a gap between two rusty steel crates, she saw them.
Sarah Miller was tied to an iron chair beneath a single hanging lightbulb. Her face was bruised, her lip cut, her hair wild and wet. But despite the bloody cheek and the terrifying circumstance, her eyes burned with an fierce, unyielding light.
Victor Vance stood over her, holding a steel crowbar, his heavy breathing misting in the cold air. Two armed men in raincoats stood near the edge of the river loading platform behind him, watching the dark water roll past.
"I buried it, Victor," Sarah spat, her voice raspy but steady. "In a place you'll never find. And the moment I don't check in with my lawyer, a digital copy goes straight to the Federal Prosecutor's office."
Vance chuckled—a dark, sickening sound. He stepped closer, leaning down until his scarred face was inches from hers. "You don't have a lawyer, Sarah. You're a broke widow living in a dump on 4th Street who couldn't even afford medicine for her sick brat. You don't have a digital copy of anything."
He raised the crowbar.
"I’m going to ask you one last time," Vance growled. "Where is my book?"
"Police! Drop your weapon!" Rachel screamed, stepping out from behind the container, her Glock centered squarely on Vance’s chest. "Hands in the air! All of you! On the ground now!"
The two armed henchmen panicked. One of them immediately raised a chrome revolver.
BANG!
Rachel squeezed the trigger before he could align his sights. The bullet struck the gunman’s shoulder, spinning him backward off the edge of the platform into the freezing river below with a loud splash.
The second henchman dropped his weapon instantly, throwing his hands over his head and falling to his knees on the slick concrete.
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Vance, however, acted with terrifying speed. He grabbed Sarah around the throat from behind, pulling her frail body in front of him as a human shield, pressing a snub-nosed .38 revolver against her temple.
"Put the gun down, cop!" Vance roared, his eyes wide with desperate rage. "Put it down or I blow her head off right here!"
