Chapter 3 - The Interrogation of Victor Vance
The boathouse cellar smelled of creosote, engine grease, and the freezing salt spray of Boston Harbor splashing through the timber pilings below.
Victor Vance sat strapped to a heavy iron bollard bolted into the concrete, his trench coat shredded at the shoulders, blood dripping from his nose onto his tactical harness.
His encrypted radio lay smashed on the floor, its circuit boards crushed beneath Leo’s combat boot.
The heavy sliding door of the slipway groaned open, letting in a blast of sub-zero sea wind.
Marcus walked into the boathouse, his midnight-blue coat unbuttoned, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
I walked two paces behind him, wrapped in a heavy sheepskin coat that Mrs. Vance had brought down from the master wardrobe, my face shielded from the ocean draft by a thick wool scarf.
When Victor Vance saw Marcus Cross step beneath the yellow work lights, the arrogance drained from his features like bilge water from an open valve.
“Cross,” the operator spat, trying to steady his voice. “I am an accredited French citizen working under a private security charter. You touch me and the maritime embassy in New York will have federal marshals on your docks before sunrise.”
Marcus didn't answer him with words.
He walked to the edge of the slipway, picked up the steel-reinforced tactical flashlight lying on a workbench—the same weapon Vance had driven into my face—and weighed it in his palm.
He stepped over to the bollard, leaning down until his face was four inches from the contractor’s bruised nose.
“You struck a woman under my protection, Victor,” Marcus whispered, his voice smooth as shaved marble.
Vance flinched, his eyes darting toward the white gauze on my jawline.
“She intercepted an encrypted data transfer! She was interfering with an authorized audit!”
“She is the granddaughter of Thomas Frost,” Marcus said, each word falling like an iron spike into the wood. “And you were planning to drown her in a ballast tank off Cape Cod.”
He raised the flashlight.
He didn't swing it wildly. With terrifying, surgical precision, Marcus drove the weighted steel butt directly into Vance’s right collarbone.
CRACK.
The sound of fracturing bone was loud and wet in the damp boathouse.
Vance threw his head back, an ear-splitting scream tearing from his throat, his legs thrashing against the iron bolts.
“The decryption codes, Victor,” Marcus said quietly, not even breathing hard. “Where are the satellite links for the Marseille syndicate?”
“In the cloud server!” Vance sobbed, tears and blood pouring down his collar. “The offshore account is registered in Monaco! Henri Laurent—Vivienne’s father—paid two million euros to buy the Coast Guard sector commander in Boston! The interception orders are signed under federal warrant number four-one-nine! If the convoy rounds the lightship, three cutters will open fire on the engine bays!”
Marcus stood upright, dropping the flashlight onto the concrete floor where it rolled into the dark water of the bay.
“Leo.”
“Yes, Don Marcus.”
“Send the emergency abort code to the midnight convoy. Order all six vessels to drop anchor inside the inner shoals under private harbor radar.”
He looked down at the weeping operator.
“Bag Victor Vance. Keep him on ice until Assistant United States Attorney Marcus Vance arrives with the treason indictments. Henri Laurent bought a federal commander, but he forgot that I own the judges who sign the warrants.”
Marcus turned back to me, extending his arm with unhurried, royal authority.
May you like
“Come, Elena. Let us go give Vivienne her wedding present.”
---
