Chapter 5 - The Gowanus Iron Works
The 1968 Lincoln Continental was a hearse of a car.
It was twenty-one feet of black lacquer, slab-sided steel, and rear suicide doors that closed with the heavy, hydraulic thud of a bank vault. Thomas Vale had bought it new the year Adrian was born, and it had remained in the climate-controlled basement of the Red Hook warehouse for eight years, maintained by an old mechanic who didn't ask why the floorboards were reinforced with quarter-inch Kevlar plating or why the glass was two inches thick.
Adrian drove.
He had removed his suit coat. He wore a heavy black cashmere turtleneck, dark trousers, and a leather jacket that smelled of old motor oil. The Sig Sauer sat on the bench seat beside him, next to an olive-drab canvas duffel bag containing ten million dollars in bearer bonds—negotiable, untraceable, and utterly useless.
In the passenger seat sat Marcus Kane.
Marcus was not holding a gun. He held an iPad that was receiving live thermal telemetry from a commercial drone hovering at four thousand feet—just high enough to avoid the cloud ceiling and completely invisible to anyone on the ground.
"Two heat signatures on the roof of the old pumping station," Marcus said, his finger tapping the screen. "One on the ground near the north slip. Three inside the main turbine hall."
"Flaherty," Adrian said. His hands were steady on the massive, thin-rimmed steering wheel.
"Flaherty and at least four others," Marcus corrected. "The thermal bloom inside the hall shows one seated figure. Centered. Tied."
Adrian’s jaw muscles worked, but he said nothing. He turned the Lincoln off Third Avenue onto 9th Street. The tires hummed over the iron grid of the bridge. The Gowanus Canal lay below them like a ditch of black ink, the rain creating millions of tiny, expanding circles on its greasy surface.
"Daniel’s team is in position at the scrap yard across the slip," Marcus said. "Four men. Suppressed carbines. They can breach the water side in ninety seconds using the Zodiac."
"No," Adrian said.
Marcus looked at him sharply. "Adrian, Flaherty has no intention of letting her walk. You know the man. He’s dying of the same rot Sal had. He wants a spectacle."
"If Daniel fires a single shot from the water, they put a bullet in Nora’s skull before the brass hits the deck," Adrian said. He swung the long hood of the Lincoln down an unpaved access road lined with towering piles of rusted scrap metal and crushed shipping containers. "Flaherty wants me. He wants to see me crawl. If he sees Daniel, the game is over."
"And if you walk in there alone?"
"I am not walking in alone," Adrian said. He reached down and clicked a small toggle switch hidden beneath the Lincoln’s dashboard.
Behind the rear seats, there was a faint, mechanical whir as an auxiliary battery pack engaged.
"What was that?" Marcus asked.
"My father didn't trust anyone he did business with," Adrian said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "Especially not the Santoros. This car was built for the 1974 waterfront meetings."
He pulled the Lincoln to a stop fifty yards from the entrance of the abandoned pumping station.
The building was a Victorian brick monstrosity, its arched windows long since shattered and replaced with corrugated iron sheets. A single sodium vapor light flickered above the rusted roll-up door, which had been raised three feet from the mud—just enough for a man to slide beneath, or a single vehicle to drive through.
Adrian turned off the headlights.
The darkness closed in immediately, thick with the sound of the rain drumming on the steel roof of the car.
Adrian picked up the Sig Sauer, checked the chamber one last time, and tucked it into the small of his back beneath his leather jacket. He picked up the duffel bag.
"Marcus."
"Yes, Adrian?"
"If I am not back out in eight minutes, tell Daniel to sink the building. Everything. Do not leave a single brick standing above the mud."
Marcus looked at him for a long moment, the tablet’s blue light reflecting in the lenses of his glasses. For the first time in thirty years, the old consigliere reached out and took Adrian’s arm, his grip surprisingly strong.
"Your father was a monster, Adrian," Marcus said softly. "You are not him. Bring her back."
May you like
Adrian didn't answer. He opened the heavy door, stepped out into the freezing November downpour, and let the door swing shut behind him with that awful, final thud.
***
