Chapter 14 - The Siege of Pier Forty-Nine
The truce within the family was secured,
but the war on the streets was only beginning to ignite.
By nine o'clock that evening,
a freezing fog blanketed Boston Harbor,
obscuring the massive rusted cranes of the Charlestown terminal like skeletal giants standing guard over the dark,
churning water.
Pier Forty-Nine sat at the farthest edge of the industrial channel,
an isolated concrete wharf surrounded by chain-link fences and shipping containers stacked three high.
Inside the central warehouse,
six heavy black SUVs with tinted windows were parked in a defensive semi-circle around an open cargo container bearing the blue Cyrillic logo of a Baltic freight line.
Twelve men in heavy tactical gear,
armed with Russian AK-twelve assault rifles,
stood along the perimeter,
smoking unfiltered cigarettes,
their breath puffing into the freezing air like steam from miniature locomotives.
In the center of the formation stood Nikolai Voronin.
He was a man in his late fifties,
tall,
broad-shouldered,
with silver hair cropped close to his skull and a face carved from Siberian granite,
his neck covered in traditional Vor v Zakone prison tattoos depicting Orthodox crosses and barbed wire.
He was looking at his gold wristwatch,
cursing softly in Russian as his underboss,
a scarred giant named Yuri,
tried to raise Marcus Vance on an encrypted satellite phone for the twentieth time.
"He is not answering,
Nikolai,"
Yuri said,
lowering the device,
his eyes narrowing against the darkness of the terminal yard.
"Something has gone wrong at the Beacon Hill mansion.
The police scanner says three medical vans left the private gatehouse two hours ago.
Vance has failed,
or he has run with the money."
"Marcus does not run,"
Voronin growled,
his voice like rocks tumbling down a frozen mountain.
"Marcus is greedy,
and greedy men stay until they are fed or until their throats are cut.
If Vance is dead,
it means Roman has the ledger.
If Roman has the ledger,
this shipment is compromised."
"Should we burn the crates and withdraw to Brighton Beach?"
Yuri asked,
signaling the two snipers stationed atop the container stacks to check their thermal optics.
"No,"
Voronin replied,
stepping toward the open container where two dozen wooden crates marked with military stencil were visible under the halogen floodlights.
"There are two hundred anti-tank munitions and fifty million dollars in uncut diamonds inside those crates.
We take what is ours,
and if Roman Duca wants to play the hero for his dead brother,
we will turn his harbor into an open cemetery."
A sudden,
high-pitched whine ripped through the damp harbor air.
Before Voronin could turn his head,
the massive four-ton steel overhead crane hanging from the ceiling of the warehouse shuddered,
its heavy electric motors screaming as a five-ton shipping container suspended from its cables was released.
The container plummeted sixty feet,
crashing directly onto two of the black SUVs with a catastrophic,
deafening roar of crushing metal,
shattering glass,
and exploding fuel tanks.
A fireball forty feet high erupted inside the warehouse,
flinging two Russian mercenaries into the corrugated metal walls like rag dolls,
the concussive shockwave knocking Voronin flat onto the oil-slicked concrete.
"Ambush!"
Yuri screamed,
raising his rifle and firing blindly into the catwalks above the burning wreckage.
From the shadows of the southern loading bay,
the counter-attack began.
Michael Briggs and twenty seasoned Duca enforcers,
armed with tactical shotguns and suppressed carbines,
advanced in a coordinated line of fire,
cutting down the disoriented mercenaries before they could establish a defensive perimeter.
I did not come with the line.
I dropped from the lower iron gantry of the crane,
landing on the roof of a blue container fifteen feet above the concrete,
my Kimber forty-five barking twice in rapid succession.
The sniper on the adjacent stack fell forward,
his rifle clattering to the floorboards below,
his body tumbling into the darkness between the metal boxes.
I leapt down into the center of the clearing,
moving through the black smoke of the burning SUVs like an avenging phantom.
Yuri turned toward me,
his assault rifle swinging toward my chest,
his face contorted in a murderous roar.
I fired three rounds directly through his center of mass,
the heavy forty-five hollow-points punching through his tactical vest,
driving him backward into the open wooden crate of munitions,
where he slumped,
dead before his rifle hit the ground.
Nikolai Voronin scrambled to his feet,
his silver hair singed by the flames,
a heavy Stechkin automatic pistol drawn in his right hand.
He did not fire.
He saw the cold,
unforgiving muzzle of my Kimber locked squarely onto the bridge of his nose,
surrounded by the bodies of his elite guard,
with Michael Briggs and six Duca soldiers leveling automatic weapons at his chest from ten feet away.
"Roman Duca,"
Voronin spat,
a mixture of blood and soot dripping from his lip,
though his cold blue eyes did not waver.
"You think killing Marcus makes you a king?
Marcus was an insect.
My syndicate has five thousand men from Brooklyn to Moscow.
You kill me tonight,
and your entire city will burn in a war that will last ten years."
"Your war ended the moment you laid a finger on my brother's life,
Nikolai,"
I said,
my voice as cold and vast as the freezing ocean behind us.
"Julian is dead,"
Voronin sneered,
holding his head high.
"And you are just a killer in an expensive suit,
protecting a dead man's ghost."
"I'm not protecting a ghost,
Nikolai,"
I replied,
cocking the hammer of the Kimber with a heavy,
metallic click that echoed over the roaring fire.
"I'm executing my brother's judgment."
I pulled the trigger.
The round took Voronin between the eyes,
snapping his head back,
dropping the Russian kingpin onto the concrete floor of Pier Forty-Nine,
ending twenty years of corruption in a single,
deafening instant.
I lowered the weapon,
turned to Briggs,
and pointed toward the crates of diamonds and munitions.
"Take the stones,"
I commanded,
turning my back on the fire.
May you like
"Torch the rest.
Let the whole harbor see that the Duca family has reclaimed its docks."
