Chapter 6 - The Ghost Ship
Midnight on the Calumet River was an landscape of pure, unadulterated gloom. A thick fog had rolled in off the lake, swallowing the rusted skeletons of the old steel mills and turning the yellow streetlights into pale, ghostly halos.
Mara sat in the passenger seat of Dominic’s armored SUV, parked on a high gravel ridge overlooking the grain elevator. Beside her, Dominic sat with a heavy tactical radio console mounted on his lap, his eyes fixed on the dark silhouette of the Canadian barge that had just slipped into the shipping slip below.
"Frequency jammed, Boss," Julian’s voice cracked over the earpiece. "The New York crew is blind. Their radios are picking up nothing but static."
Dominic clicked his transmitter, his voice dropping into a flawless, gruff imitation of the Detroit accent he had spent the last forty-eight hours studying from captured audio logs. "This is Star-One to units at the gate. The Vale syndicate just launched a counter-offensive at the Pilsen docks. All forces abandon the elevator immediately. Fall back to Pilsen. Repeat, fall back to Pilsen."
Through the binoculars, Mara watched as the heavy iron doors of the grain elevator burst open. Dozens of men in dark jackets and tactical gear sprinted toward a row of utility vans, their headlights cutting through the fog as they tore away from the river, heading full sprint toward the wrong side of the city.
Within five minutes, the massive drug terminal was completely deserted, left entirely unguarded except for the three crew members operating the barge's crane.
"Let's go," Dominic said, shifting the SUV into drive.
They descended the ridge, the heavy vehicle bouncing across the gravel before screeching to a halt right at the edge of the shipping slip. Frankie and a dozen of Dominic’s loyal enforcers flooded out from the shadows of the containers, their weapons drawn as they boarded the barge with silent, lethal efficiency.
The crew members surrendered without a single shot fired, their hands thrown into the air as Frankie’s men secured the deck.
Dominic walked down into the hold of the ship, Mara following closely behind. The air inside was freezing, smelling of salt water and industrial plastic. Stacked in the center of the hold were fifty heavy wooden crates, their slats stenciled with the logo of a Canadian agricultural firm.
Frankie used a crowbar to pry open the first crate. Inside, packed beneath rows of industrial fertilizer, were hundreds of vacuum-sealed bricks of pure, white powder.
"Four hundred million dollars worth of poison," Frankie whispered, his face pale under the harsh halogen work lights of the hold. "Boss... what do we do with it? If we dump it in the river, the EPA will shut down the whole shipping district."
Dominic looked at the bricks, then at Mara. His expression was no longer cold; it was filled with an absolute, righteous clarity.
"We aren't dumping it, Frankie," Dominic said. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number he had kept locked in his private encrypted files for five years—the direct line to the Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago FBI Field Office.
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"Agent Miller," Dominic said smoothly into the receiver. "This is Dominic Vale. I believe you’ve been looking for the Leone family’s primary distribution hub. If you send your tactical teams to the Calumet grain elevator right now, you’ll find four hundred million dollars of narcotics sitting on a silver platter, along with a complete set of financial ledgers identifying every corrupt port official on the eastern seaboard."
He paused, a dark, brilliant smile stretching across his lips. "Consider it a donation to the city from a concerned citizen. Just make sure the Detroit crew gets the credit they deserve."
