Chapter 8 - The Siege of Slip 4
The Chicago docks at midnight were a chaotic labyrinth of towering container cranes, rusted shipping crates, and greasy asphalt slick with a cold, blowing autumn rain.
When the three black armored SUVs screeched to a halt near Slip 4, the air smelled heavily of burnt rubber, charred timber, and acrid diesel smoke. A massive shipping container sixty feet away was still smoldering, orange flames licking hungrily against the steel siding.
“Stay inside the vehicle,” Dominic ordered Harper as he threw open the door of the lead SUV, stepping out into the pouring rain with a tactical rifle slung across his chest.
“Not a chance,” Harper said, sliding out the opposite door wearing a heavy tactical vest over her sweater, holding a secure encrypted radio she had snatched from Marcus’s dashboard.
Before Dominic could argue, a barrage of automatic gunfire chewed through the metal siding of a nearby crane, sending a shower of sparks cascading down into the puddles around them.
“Ambush!” Marcus roared, diving behind the reinforced engine block of the SUV and returning fire with his submachine gun.
Chaos erupted. Shadows moved between the towering stacks of shipping containers as a dozen armed Moretti syndicate hitmen poured out from the dark recesses of the warehouse, firing suppressive rounds into the Gallagher convoy.
Dominic didn't flinch. Moving with the lethal, calculating grace of a trained soldier, he advanced between the crates, his rifle snapping upward twice in rapid succession. Two Moretti gunmen dropped instantly, neutralizing the crossfire threatening their flank.
Harper crouched behind the steel wheel of the SUV, her heart hammering against her ribs, her mind instinctively analyzing the architectural layout of the docks around her.
She looked up at the elevated gantry crane towering fifty feet above the loading docks—the exact vantage point where a sniper was currently reloading a heavy rifle, aiming directly at Dominic’s back as he advanced through the smoke.
“Dominic! Crane, twelve o'clock!” Harper screamed over the roar of gunfire.
Dominic didn't look up; he dropped instantly into a tactical slide behind a concrete barrier just as a high-caliber sniper round blew a chunk out of the asphalt where he had been standing a microsecond earlier.
The sniper was hidden behind the glass-enclosed control cabin of the crane, completely shielded from ground fire.
Harper didn't think. She remembered the blueprint schematics of the port authority she had reviewed for her architectural project.
She scrambled into the back of the SUV, grabbed a heavy iron wrench from the emergency tool kit, and sprinted toward the exterior access ladder of the towering gantry crane, ignoring the bullets pinging against the metal stairs around her.
“Harper, get down!” Dominic roared from below, his voice cut short by a burst of return fire.
She didn't listen. She hauled herself up the rungs of the ladder like a woman possessed, the cold rain stinging her face, her muscles burning with adrenaline.
When she reached the top platform, she kicked open the glass access door of the crane operator’s cabin.
The Moretti sniper spun around in shock, raising his pistol, but Harper didn't give him the chance to aim. With a fierce, primal shout, she swung the heavy iron wrench with all her might, striking the sniper squarely across the wrist.
The pistol clattered uselessly to the floor. With a second swift, furious blow, Harper cracked the wrench against the side of his helmet, sending the heavy-set hitman collapsing unconscious onto the console.
Harper grabbed the overhead emergency release lever of the crane cabin, pulled it down with all her weight, and watched as a massive, five-ton steel spreader bar swung outward across the docks, sweeping away a stack of empty pallets and pinning three Moretti gunmen against a chain-link fence below.
The gunfire across the entire terminal abruptly ground to a stunned, terrified halt.
Below, Marcus lowered his weapon, his mouth hanging open in sheer disbelief.
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Dominic stepped out from behind his concrete barrier, his dark eyes slowly rising up to the glass cabin fifty feet above.
Standing in the floodlights of the crane, soaked to the bone, hair whipping in the wind, and holding a heavy iron wrench, Harper Quinn looked down at the king of the Chicago underworld and gave him a sharp, triumphant nod.
