Chapter 6 - THE FLOODGATE PROTOCOL
The scent of salt brine, wet concrete, and thirty years of stagnant diesel hit Paige like a physical blow as they descended the emergency iron ladder into the subterranean maintenance shaft beneath Pier 14.
The storm overhead was deafening. Every swell of the Atlantic Atlantic harbor slammed against the concrete seawall thirty feet above their heads, sending deep, shuddering tremors through the structural pilings that rattled the iron rungs beneath Paige’s boots.
Roman led the way, moving through the pitch-black tunnel with the silent, predatory grace of a phantom, holding a tactical flashlight in his left hand, his suppressed pistol drawn in his right. Behind Paige came Mikhail and three heavily armed security operators in dark tactical gear, their submachine guns held at low-ready, their night-vision optics glowing with faint green diodes in the gloom.
Paige kept her left hand buried inside the pocket of her shearling pea coat, her fingers wrapped around the cold, textured grip of the compact pistol Roman had handed her in the armory.
"Ten yards to the secondary hatch," Paige whispered, leaning close to Roman’s shoulder. The heat radiating from his wool coat was the only warm thing in the subterranean freeze. "Look at the ceiling conduit. The red wire should be live."
Roman swept his flashlight beam across the rusted overhead pipes.
A bundle of modern fiber-optic cables had been freshly zip-tied to her father’s antique copper conduits, pulsing with faint blue indicator lights.
"They're tapping the harbor authority’s power grid," Roman murmured. "Dominic brought industrial cutting torches."
Suddenly, the deep, hollow roar of hydraulic pumps echoed from the darkness ahead, followed by the muffled, frantic shouting of men speaking in rapid, agitated Italian.
“Presto! Il generatore sta cedendo! Taglia quel maledetto cardine!”
Roman didn't shout an order. He simply raised two fingers, and Mikhail’s team fanned out into the shadows along the concrete walls, their boots making no sound against the wet slime of the floor.
They rounded the final bend of the tunnel.
Chamber Three opened before them like a vast, subterranean cathedral of reinforced concrete. At the far end of the room, illuminated by three portable halogen floodlights, stood eight men in heavy tactical windbreakers, surrounding a massive steel blast door that had been cut halfway through with an oxyacetylene torch.
Standing on an upturned wooden crate, directing the cutting crew, was Dominic Leone.
He was thirty-five, with slicked-back dark hair, wearing a designer leather bomber jacket and expensive combat boots, a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol tucked carelessly into his waistband.
"Dominic," Roman’s voice rang through the vaulted chamber like an iron bell.
The eight men spun around in sheer, unadulterated panic, their hands clawing frantically toward their weapons.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Mikhail’s suppressed weapons coughed in the dark with surgical, rhythmic precision.
Three of the cutting technicians collapsed onto the wet concrete before their hands could touch their holsters, their weapons clattering uselessly against the stone. The remaining three mercenaries scrambled behind the timber crates, opening fire with unsuppressed submachine guns that shattered the subterranean silence with deafening, concussive roars.
Bullets chewed into the concrete pillars above Paige’s head, showering her in pulverized stone and blinding dust.
Roman moved instantly. He shoved Paige behind a massive structural piling, shielding her body with his own, his arm wrapping around her waist as he leaned around the concrete and fired four controlled, double-tap bursts that silenced two more shooters in the gloom.
"The purge valve!" Roman shouted over the roar of gunfire, his voice cutting through the smoke. "Where is the manual cutoff?!"
Paige peeked around the concrete barrier.
On the far wall, twenty feet from where Dominic Leone was crouched behind an industrial generator, sat a heavy, round iron wheel painted bright yellow, secured with an emergency break-away chain.
Above the wheel, a red emergency warning strobe had begun to pulse rhythmically:
WARNING: SEAWALL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. AUTOMATIC FLOODGATE ACTIVATION IN 60 SECONDS.
The industrial torches had burned through the structural sensors in the blast door. The automated harbor system believed the pier was collapsing and was preparing to flood the entire chamber with twenty feet of ocean water to equalize the external pressure.
"The yellow wheel!" Paige yelled, her adrenaline burning away every particle of fear in her veins. "If that wheel isn't turned four full rotations clockwise before the timer hits zero, the sluice gates will drop and drown everything in this tunnel!"
Dominic Leone heard her.
He looked up at the red strobe, then looked at Roman pinned behind the pillar. A twisted, desperate grin of pure, homicidal madness spread across his face.
"If I don't get the vaults, Gallow, you don't leave the harbor!" Dominic screamed, leveling his gold-plated pistol directly at the yellow wheel’s hydraulic control box and firing three wild, frantic rounds that sparked against the iron housing.
He spun on his heel and bolted toward the emergency ladder on the northern wall, scrambling upward into the darkness like a sewer rat.
"Mikhail, take the exit!" Roman commanded.
Mikhail and the surviving operator sprinted after Leone, their weapons raised.
Roman stepped out from behind the pillar, but as his weight shifted, his left leg buckled slightly—a stray ricochet had caught him in the meat of his thigh, dark crimson blood already soaking through his tailored charcoal wool trousers.
He hissed through clenched teeth, catching himself against the concrete.
"Roman!" Paige screamed, rushing to his side, throwing her shoulder under his arm to support his massive frame.
"The wheel, Paige," Roman gritted out, his jaw locked in agony, his icy blue eyes fixed on the flashing red strobe.
TIMER: 22 SECONDS.
A deep, apocalyptic groan echoed through the foundations as the primary sea gates began to lift. A six-inch torrent of icy black ocean water surged through the drainage grates beneath their feet, rising around their boots in swirling, freezing whirlpools.
Paige didn't hesitate.
She let go of Roman, stepped into the rising water, and sprinted across the open chamber toward the yellow iron wheel.
She reached the wall. The wheel was heavy, cast from solid industrial iron, covered in fifty years of marine scale and grease.
She grabbed the spokes with her left hand and threw her weight into it.
It didn't budge.
TIMER: 12 SECONDS.
A foot of freezing water slammed against her knees, nearly knocking her off her feet.
She looked down at her right arm.
The carbon-fiber brace locked her wrist in place, but beneath the composite shell, her hand was free.
"Don't do it, Paige!" Roman roared from across the chamber, dragging his wounded leg through the rising flood, his gun discarded as he scrambled toward her. "Your tendon will tear!"
"Shut up!" Paige screamed.
She grabbed the right spoke with her braced hand, clamped her fingers around the iron, ignored the white-hot flash of agony that exploded through her carpal tunnel, and threw her entire body weight clockwise.
SCREEECH.
The rusted gears groaned, sheared through the calcium buildup, and began to turn.
One rotation.
Two rotations.
Three rotations.
TIMER: 03 SECONDS.
Her right wrist popped—a sickening, dull thud of tearing tissue beneath the brace—but she didn't let go. She screamed through her teeth, planting her boots in the surging water, and slammed the wheel through its final, fourth revolution.
CLANK.
A massive hydraulic solenoid engaged with a concussive shockwave that rattled the concrete walls.
The red strobe went dark.
The deafening roar of the sea gates died away, replaced by the heavy, mechanical thud of the emergency sluice gates slamming shut fifty yards down the tunnel. The water level in the chamber stopped rising, swirling harmlessly around their shins before slowly draining through the floor scuppers.
Paige collapsed against the damp concrete wall, gasping for air, her vision tunneling into gray static, her right arm hanging limp and trembling violently inside the shattered brace.
A pair of massive, warm arms caught her before her knees could hit the water.
Roman pulled her flush against his chest, lifting her effortlessly against his shoulder despite the bullet wound in his thigh. He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath ragged, his dark eyes ablaze with an emotion so raw, so wild, and so utterly unshielded that it took whatever breath she had left straight from her lungs.
"You're out of your mind," Roman whispered against her lips, his voice trembling with an awe that bordered on reverence.
Paige let out a weak, broken laugh, resting her forehead against his wet wool lapel, inhaling the scent of gunsmoke, salt water, and the man who had just rewritten her entire universe.
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"You said... my father’s debt was settled," she wheezed, her eyelids fluttering with exhaustion. "Consider this... the tip."
Roman’s chest heaved with a low, rich chuckle that rumbled through his broad ribs, and as Mikhail’s team returned down the ladder to secure the perimeter, Roman Gallow lifted the waitress from the North District into his arms and carried her out of the dark, into the light of the waking city.
