Chapter 7 - The Docks of Wilmington
The salt air of the Cape Fear River was thick with fog as twilight fell over Marine Pier 14. The dock was private, surrounded by high chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. Moored at the end of the pier sat The Royal Sovereign, a 120-foot luxury motor yacht owned by Whitmore Enterprises.
From my position inside a rented construction van parked two hundred yards away, I monitored the dock through a pair of night-vision binoculars.
Activity was frantic. Three black vans were parked near the gangway. Men in dark suits were transferring heavy steel shipping trunks from the vans onto the deck of the yacht. Grant Whitmore stood on the upper deck, wearing a windbreaker, barking orders into a handheld radio while holding a tumbler of scotch.
Beside me in the passenger seat, Emily held a directional microphone pointed at the vessel. The audio feed piped directly into our laptop speakers.
"...make sure the secondary ledger is burned!" Margaret’s voice boomed through the speakers from inside the yacht's salon. "If the federal marshals get those documents, the offshore accounts will be frozen before we dock in Nassau!"
"We have them," Emily whispered, her voice trembling with adrenaline. "They're admitting to destroying evidence."
"Stay in the van, Emily," I warned softly, checking my tactical vest and securing my spare magazines. "Once I step onto that dock, things are going to move fast."
"I'm not staying in the van, Dad," she said, pulling a spare SBI windbreaker over her sweater. "Grant thinks I'm weak. He spent three years making me believe I was nothing without him. I need to look him in the eye when he goes down."
I stared at my daughter. The bruised, trembling girl from the hospital two days ago was gone. In her place stood a woman who had reclaimed her soul.
"Alright," I said, handing her a secondary radio. "You stay behind me. You stick to the shadow of the crane. If a single shot is fired, you drop flat on the wooden deck. Understood?"
"Understood."
We slipped out of the van, melting into the thick ocean fog that rolled across the pier.
We moved like ghosts past the outer perimeter fence. I bypassed the electric gate lock using a quick bypass tool, allowing us to slip onto the wooden boardwalk without alerting the dock guards.
As we neared the vessel, Grant’s voice carried over the sound of the churning tide. "Hurry up, damn it! The captain says the weather is turning! We launch in five minutes!"
"You're not launching anywhere, Grant," I called out, stepping out from behind a stack of shipping containers into the bright dock lights.
Grant spun around, nearly spilling his drink. His face twisted from shock into a hideous, malicious sneer. "Daniel Vance. You really are stupid enough to show up alone."
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"He's not alone," Emily said, stepping out from the shadows right beside me, holding her head high, the bruises on her face stark against the white floodlights.
Grant went entirely rigid, his glass dropping from his hand and shattering on the teak deck.
