Chapter 11 - Five Minutes to Burn
The timer reached 04:31.
Mia stared at the control screens.
"We cannot solve all three problems separately."
Marco looked at her.
"Emma, Price, fire."
"Four problems."
She pointed at Gabriel's camera.
"Gabriel."
His voice came through the radio.
"I can hear you."
"Then try not to become number five."
Vittorio remained inside the glass office with the remote in his hand.
The two guards near Emma kept glancing at the timer.
Price sat bound inside the truck near pump two.
Adrian stood beside Mia studying the old control panel.
"If I kill power to the pumps, the backup battery takes over."
"For how long?"
"Ninety seconds."
Marco shook his head.
"Not enough."
Mia looked at the cargo crane controls.
"Can the crane move without the pump system?"
Adrian frowned.
"Separate generator."
"Good."
She pointed at the container stacks beside Emma.
"Move blue container C-seven across the loading lane."
Marco looked at her.
"Why?"
"It blocks Vittorio's shooters from Gabriel and gives Emma cover from the river gate."
"And crushes anyone standing in the lane if we miss."
"Then do not miss."
Marco looked at Adrian.
"Can you operate it?"
Adrian shook his head.
Mia sat at the console.
"I can read labels."
Gabriel heard her.
"Mia, no experiments with industrial machinery."
"You stole a shipping company before you were thirty."
"Inherited."
"Even worse."
The timer reached 03:58.
Vittorio's voice came over the speaker.
"Time is expensive, Gabriel."
Gabriel stepped from behind the containers with the black ledger in one hand.
Marco swore.
"What is he doing?"
Mia knew.
"Buying us time."
Gabriel walked toward the open loading lane.
"You want the ledger, Vittorio?"
Vittorio appeared behind the office glass.
"And the key."
"You do not get Mia."
"Then you do not get the girl."
Gabriel stopped beneath the floodlights.
"Emma has nothing to do with this."
"Neither did Leo."
Gabriel's face became murderous.
Vittorio smiled.
"There he is."
Mia gripped the crane controls.
"Adrian, tell me when the hook is above C-seven."
Adrian watched the overhead monitor.
"Left."
Mia moved the lever.
"Too far."
She corrected.
"Stop."
The hook hovered above the blue container.
"Lower."
Marco watched Emma's guards.
"Two minutes forty."
Mia locked the spreader onto the container.
A green light appeared.
"Got it."
Adrian looked almost impressed.
"You have done this before?"
"No."
"Wonderful."
Gabriel remained exposed in the lane.
"Vittorio, where is Price?"
"Alive."
"Release him."
"Bring me the key."
Gabriel held up the black ledger.
"One piece at a time."
"You never learned patience."
"Daniel did."
Vittorio's face changed behind the glass.
Only slightly.
Gabriel saw it.
"That name still bothers you."
"Daniel was weak."
Hearing it made something in Gabriel settle.
For eighteen months he had blamed rain, fate, himself, and every decision that kept Daniel in Chicago.
Now the man who arranged his brother's death was calling Daniel weak.
The grief stopped being fog.
It became direction.
"He was stronger than you."
Vittorio laughed.
"He was going to surrender everything your father built."
"Maybe he understood what it cost."
"He understood nothing."
The timer reached 02:11.
Mia whispered into the radio.
"Gabriel, three steps right."
He moved without looking toward the control room.
"Another two."
He moved again.
Mia lifted C-seven.
The massive container rose from the stack.
Metal groaned through the terminal.
One of Emma's guards looked up.
"Now they know," Marco said.
"Good."
Mia swung the container across the lane.
Vittorio's voice sharpened.
"What are you doing?"
Gabriel smiled.
"Apparently my accountant is driving your pier."
Mia muttered, "Not helping."
The container moved between Gabriel and the eastern shooters.
Marco opened the control-room door.
"I go for Emma."
Adrian pointed toward pump three.
"I take the cabinet."
Mia looked at him.
"If you disappear-"
"You will assume the worst."
"Correct."
"Your father would approve."
Mia's eyes hardened.
"Earn the right to mention him."
Adrian flinched again.
Then he left.
The timer reached 01:37.
Marco moved through the container shadows toward Emma.
Mia lowered C-seven onto the concrete.
It blocked the guards' view of Gabriel.
One attacker moved around the end.
Gabriel struck him before he cleared the corner.
A second man fired.
The bullet hit the container wall.
Gabriel returned fire toward the ground and forced him behind cover.
"Forty-five seconds," Mia said.
At pump three, Adrian opened the control cabinet.
The wiring inside had been altered.
"Mia."
"Talk."
"The backup circuit has two relays."
"Can you cut both?"
"Yes."
"Then cut both."
"One may trigger the ignition."
Mia stared at the timer.
00:31.
"That would have been useful earlier."
"I just discovered it."
Marco reached Emma.
He took down the first guard from behind.
The second turned.
Emma kicked him in the knee before Marco reached him.
The man stumbled.
Marco hit him once and pulled Emma behind the container.
"You okay?"
She was crying and furious.
"My dad better be alive."
"He is."
"Then move."
Marco almost smiled.
Mercer stubbornness apparently ran in the family.
00:18.
Gabriel moved toward the truck holding Price.
Vittorio shouted over the speaker.
"Stop."
Gabriel kept moving.
"I will burn it now."
Gabriel looked up at the office.
"Then burn with it."
Vittorio's expression changed.
00:09.
Adrian stared at the two relays.
Red.
Black.
He remembered Salvatore's old systems.
Red controlled power.
Black controlled fail-safe.
He cut black first.
Nothing happened.
He cut red.
The control-room monitors went dark.
Mia held her breath.
Emergency lights returned.
The timer froze at 00:03.
Then disappeared.
"Adrian?"
His voice came through the radio.
"Still alive."
Mia exhaled.
"Fire system disabled."
Gabriel reached Price's truck.
Vittorio pressed the remote.
Nothing happened.
He pressed it again.
Gabriel looked up at him.
"Bad night for your plans."
Vittorio threw the remote against the office wall.
Then he ran.
"He's moving," Mia shouted.
Gabriel freed Price instead of chasing him.
Mia saw the decision on the monitor.
He chose the living person in front of him over revenge.
That mattered.
Marco brought Emma into the control room.
She grabbed his jacket.
"Where is my dad?"
"Safe."
"Promise?"
Marco looked at her.
"I promise."
Price stumbled into the room with Gabriel's help two minutes later.
His face was bruised, but he was walking.
Mia looked at him.
"You signed the declaration."
Price sighed.
"Good to see you too."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Vittorio had a gun against a nurse's head."
Mia nodded once.
"Acceptable explanation."
Price looked at her bandages.
"You ran."
"Different emergency."
"I hate all of you."
Gabriel looked toward the monitors.
"Where did Vittorio go?"
Adrian returned from pump three.
"River tunnel."
Sterling's voice came over the radio from outside.
"He has a boat."
Gabriel's face hardened.
"Can you stop him?"
A long pause.
Then Sterling said, "No."
The sound of an engine faded into the river fog.
Vittorio had escaped.
Dante sat handcuffed in the back of Marco's vehicle when they brought him into the control room.
He looked at the empty office above the pier.
"He left me."
Nobody answered.
Mia almost felt sorry for him.
Then she remembered the two times he had hit her and the terrified girl standing beside Marco.
Sympathy did not require forgiveness.
Adrian connected a portable drive to the terminal's local server.
"Vittorio erased most of the security archive."
Mia sat beside him.
"Most?"
"There is a transaction cache."
"Open it."
Adrian did.
Hundreds of small files appeared.
Mia inserted the metal wafer from beneath her bandage into a narrow reader built into the old control desk.
Adrian stared.
"Elias's key."
"Apparently."
"Where did you find it?"
"Somewhere my father hoped people like you would not."
Adrian looked away.
The reader accepted the wafer.
A hidden menu opened.
CROWN MASTER ACCESS.
Gabriel moved closer.
"This is the system?"
Mia nodded.
"Or a mirror of it."
She entered the sequence engraved on the key.
The screen displayed a list of account beneficiaries.
The first was Vittorio Romano.
The second was a trust controlled by Crown Harbor Logistics.
The third made Gabriel stop breathing.
A. VALE - PRIMARY RESERVE BENEFICIARY.
Everyone looked at Adrian.
He closed his eyes.
Gabriel's voice became dangerously quiet.
"What does the A stand for?"
Adrian did not answer.
Gabriel stepped closer.
"Adrian."
The older attorney opened his eyes.
For the first time in the twenty-five years Gabriel had known him, he looked afraid.
"Anthony."
Gabriel stared at him.
Adrian continued.
"Anthony Salvatore Vale."
Dante began laughing from the doorway.
Gabriel turned.
Dante looked at Adrian with bitter satisfaction.
"Tell him the rest."
Adrian's face went pale.
Dante smiled.
May you like
"Tell Gabriel why his father gave you his own middle name."
