Chapter 5 - THE HUNT ON THE SOUNDFive miles off the coast of Long Island, the seventy-foot luxury yacht The Golden Sovereign cut through the dark, tempestuous waves of the Sound.
Inside the mahogany-paneled master cabin of the vessel sat Victor Moretti.
Victor was fifty-eight, a heavy-set man with slicked-back grey hair, wearing a cashmere coat, sipping cognac while reviewing a series of legal documents on a glowing tablet screen. Sitting across from him were two of his senior enforcers, armed with suppressed submachine guns.
"Is the doctor’s transport confirmed?" Victor asked his captain over the intercom.
"Dr. Andrews reported he has the children in transit, Don Moretti," the captain’s voice came back through the speaker, strange and slightly distorted by static. "We meet at the private dock in Connecticut in twenty minutes."
Victor smiled, swirling his cognac. "Beautiful. Rory Starks will sign over the harbor terminals by midnight tomorrow, or his precious twins will suffer a sudden, tragic medical complication in the hospital."
Suddenly, the lights inside the luxury cabin flickered.
A high-pitched, almost imperceptible electronic hum began to vibrate through the floorboards.
Victor frowned, setting his cognac glass down. "What’s wrong with the generator?"
One of the enforcers rubbed his temples. "Boss... do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"It’s not a sound," the enforcer said, his face suddenly turning pale, sweat breaking out on his forehead. "It’s... it’s in my chest."
Within sixty seconds, the infrasonic wave being broadcast through the yacht’s internal public-address speaker system reached eighteen hertz—the exact frequency Maya had recalibrated from the estate's central control room.
Only this time, the output wasn't set to low power for a child's bedroom.
Maya had routed the signal through the yacht's high-wattage marine sonar system.
Victor Moretti suddenly gasped, clutching his stomach as violent, uncontrollable nausea surged up his throat. He fell out of his leather chair onto his knees, vomiting blood onto the plush rug.
"STOP IT!" Victor shrieked, clawing at his ears as the invisible sound waves vibrated his inner ears, destroying his balance. "TURN IT OFF! TURN THE ENGINE OFF!"
His two enforcers were on the floor beside him, weeping, hallucinating dark figures standing in the corners of the room, their hands clawing frantically at their own clothes.
The master cabin doors swung open.
Rory Starks stepped into the room.
He wore a heavy black oilskin coat, water dripping from his shoulders, holding a silver-plated revolver in his right hand. Beside him walked Maya, carrying a portable frequency generator, her thumb resting on the control dial.
Behind them stood Brant and four of Rory’s top harbor operatives.
Victor looked up from the floor, his vision blurred by the acoustic waves, his face twisted in absolute terror. "Starks... what... what are you doing to us?!"
Rory walked over, his heavy boot coming down directly onto Victor’s hand, crushing his fingers against the floorboards.
"You put a monster in my daughters' bedroom, Victor," Rory whispered, leaning down until his eyes were inches from the crime boss’s face. "You made them beg me to cut their heads open to stop the buzzing."
"Please..." Victor sobbed, blood running from his nose as the infrasound vibrated his capillary vessels. "Turn it off... I’ll give you the ports... I’ll give you everything!"
Maya looked at Rory. "Mr. Starks. If I turn it up any higher, their eardrums will rupture permanently."
Rory didn't look back. "Turn it up two notches, Maya."
Maya hesitated for a fraction of a second. She saw the monster who had tried to destroy two innocent little girls lying helpless on the floor. She slowly dialed the frequency knob to the right.
A guttural, agonizing shriek tore from Victor Moretti’s throat as his world dissolved into absolute, blinding agony.
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"Now," Rory said, pulling a stack of legal documents from his coat pocket and throwing them onto the bloody rug in front of Moretti. "Sign over the New Jersey shipping terminals, the Atlantic City real estate, and your family's entire voting share in the Port Authority. Sign them, or I leave this generator running until your heart stops beating."
With trembling, broken fingers, weeping like a child, Victor Moretti picked up the pen and signed every single page.
