Chapter 3 - The Interception at the Docks
The sleet had turned into heavy, driving rain as Leo’s armored black Maybach tore through the industrial access corridors of South Boston, flanked by two black SUVs.
The harbor was a dark, churning expanse beneath the yellow sodium floodlights of the container terminals.
At the entrance to Bay 14, a heavy commercial freight flatbed truck sat idling against the concrete security barrier. Its front tires had been shredded by tactical spike strips deployed across the asphalt, and four armed men in dark rain gear surrounded the cab with carbines raised.
Thomas Bell stood near the rear doors of the shipping container, holding a pneumatic bolt cutter and a high-intensity floodlight.
The Maybach came to a smooth halt. Leo stepped out into the storm, opening an oversized umbrella, holding it over my head as we walked toward the rear of the truck.
The driver of the flatbed—a thickset man with a dockworker's union jacket—sat handcuffed on the wet pavement, guarded by two of Leo’s operatives.
"Open it, Thomas," Leo commanded.
Thomas applied the heavy steel jaws of the cutter to the hardened customs seal. With a sharp, concussive snap, the lock fractured, and the heavy steel doors swung open into the rain.
Inside the forty-foot steel container, illuminated by the halogen beams, sat eight heavy wooden crates stenciled with the logo of an aerospace manufacturing firm in Munich.
Thomas used a crowbar to pry the lid off the central crate.
Beneath layers of synthetic packing foam and industrial grease lay sixteen military-grade night-vision telemetry units, encrypted tactical transponders, and forty cases of un-serialized firearms components destined for the European black market.
I stepped closer, holding my tablet, scanning the barcode on the side of the crate.
"The serial sequences match the stolen Department of Defense freight shipment reported missing from the naval yard in Newport three weeks ago," I said, my breath turning to white vapor in the freezing air. "Richard wasn't just skimming freight tariffs, Leo. He was using Northside Logistics as an illegal weapons pipeline for Marcus Vance."
Leo looked at the crates, his expression carved from sub-zero granite.
"Marcus Vance thought he could use my company's legitimate logistics cover to traffic contraband across the Atlantic," Leo murmured, his voice deadly and low. "And he used Richard to intimidate the only woman in this company who had the brains to catch him."
May you like
He turned to Thomas Bell.
"Secure the perimeter. Call Federal Special Agent Raymond Callahan. Tell him the Moretti-Costello alliance is delivering forty million dollars in illegal defense hardware to his doorstep."
