Chapter 5 - The Fall from Pier 4
The door to the cold storage hall burst open.
Two tactical guards carrying assault rifles stepped through, their high-powered weapon lights cutting through the darkness.
"There they are!" the lead guard yelled, raising his rifle.
"Down!" Ellis pulled Willow behind a massive concrete pillar just as a hail of gunfire tore through the wooden pallets, sending splinters flying through the air.
"We can't go back down the stairs!" Willow gasped, holding onto Ellis's arm. "They have men blocking the lower exit!"
Ellis looked around the vast industrial room. At the far end, an old cargo winch hung out over an open loading bay forty feet above the black, churning waters of the East River. A heavy hemp rope ran through a rusted iron pulley, attached to a wooden platform used decades ago to lower fish barrels onto barges.
"How good is your swim?" Ellis asked, looking at her.
Willow looked at the window, then at the guards advancing behind a tactical shield. "Better than my chances with a bullet."
"On three!" Ellis grabbed a heavy iron fire extinguisher mounted on the pillar.
"One... two... THREE!"
Ellis stepped out from behind the pillar and hurled the heavy fire extinguisher directly at the advancing guards. It hit the lead guard's tactical shield with a deafening CLANG, knocking him off balance.
"Go!" Ellis roared.
They sprinted toward the open cargo bay.
"Fire! Don't let them reach the ledge!" the guard leader shouted.
Bullets chewed through the floorboards at their heels. They reached the edge of the open doorway. Forty feet below, the black river churned against the timber pilings of the pier.
Ellis didn't hesitate. He grabbed the heavy winch rope, wrapped his arm firmly around Willow's waist, pulling her flush against his chest.
"Hold onto me!" he screamed into her ear.
They stepped off the edge into empty space.
The rusted pulley squealed in protest as they plunged down through the fog. The rope burned through Ellis's leather gloves, but he held on with every ounce of strength in his body.
Ten feet above the water, the ancient rope snapped.
They hit the freezing East River with a violent splash.
The icy water hit Ellis like a sledgehammer, knocking the air from his lungs. The current was fierce, pulling them under the dark, slimy pilings beneath the pier.
Ellis kicked violently, his lungs screaming for air, one arm holding onto Willow's coat. They broke the surface under the wooden decking of the dock, gasping for breath, shielded from the guards above by thick timber beams.
Above them, on the pier, gunshots echoed aimlessly into the open water as the guards realized their targets had vanished into the river.
"Ellis..." Willow gasped, her teeth chattering so violently she could barely speak. "The current... it's pulling us out..."
"Grab the beam!" Ellis shouted, hooking his arm over a barnacle-encrusted wooden support pillar.
He pulled her up out of the freezing water onto a narrow maintenance walkway suspended beneath the pier. They collapsed together on the wooden planks, soaked, freezing, but alive.
Across the water, two miles away, the glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline shone through the clearing fog.
Ellis pulled his waterproof phone from his inner pocket. Miraculously, the screen flickered to life.
He hit Marcus's number.
"Ellis?!" Marcus answered, sounding frantic. "Where the hell are you?! I have three police cruisers outside your apartment building!"
"Marcus," Ellis whispered, his breath coming in white plumes. "I have Willow. We're under Pier 4. I need you to bring a boat. Not a squad car. A boat."
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"Ellis, who is chasing you?"
"Vanguard Infrastructure," Ellis said, his voice dropping into a register of pure vengeance. "And Marcus... tell the State Attorney General to get his chief investigator on the line. We are coming in with the files."
