Chapter 5 - FIRE ON THE ATLANTIC
The motor yacht surged forward into the giant, black ocean waves, cutting through the storm-tossed harbor at thirty knots.
On the open aft deck, rain lashed against the hull like handfuls of gravel.
Victor Vance spun around, leveling his weapon at Roman, but the violent toss of a fifteen-foot swell threw him off balance. Roman lunged forward, grabbing the barrel of Victor’s gun and twisting it violently out of his hands, sending the weapon clattering into the dark, churning sea.
Victor let out a ragged scream, reaching for a hunting knife tucked into his belt, slashing wildly at Roman’s chest.
The blade sliced through Roman’s tactical vest, cutting a deep crimson line across his shoulder. Roman didn't even flinch. He stepped inside the blade’s arc, grabbing Victor by the throat with his left hand and lifting the gaunt man entirely off his feet, slamming him against the glass wall of the captain’s bridge.
The glass spiderwebbed under the impact.
“Nine years, Victor,” Roman growled, his face inches from his former lieutenant’s terror-stricken eyes. “Nine years you let me believe she died alone in a hospital room.”
Victor gasped for air, his fingers clawing uselessly at Roman’s iron grip. “She... she would have destroyed everything, Roman! She was turning you soft! You were going to leave the organization for her!”
“I would have burnt the entire organization to the ground for her!” Roman roared, his voice cutting through the thundering storm.
He slammed Victor against the glass again, shattering the safety frame completely.
Inside the pilot cabin, the automated steering system was locked on a direct heading toward the rocky cliffs of Blackwood Ledge—a treacherous wall of granite reefs two miles offshore.
The alarm system began to blare a continuous, high-pitched warning whistle: COLLISION IMMINENT. COLLISION IMMINENT.
Victor looked through the broken cabin window and saw the massive, foaming white waves crashing against the jagged black rocks directly ahead of the speeding vessel.
“Turn it off!” Victor shrieked, his arrogant bravado dissolving into pure, unadulterated cowardice. “Turn the boat around! We’re going to hit the reef!”
Roman looked at the looming granite cliffs through the rain, then back at the man who had stolen his family.
“You’re not going to hit the reef, Victor,” Roman said coldly. “You’re going to face justice.”
Roman pulled a pair of heavy steel flex-cuffs from his belt, dragging Victor toward the heavy iron mooring cleat at the center of the deck, strapping his hands securely around the immovable metal frame.
Roman turned toward the wheelhouse, grabbing the emergency throttle controls, pulling them back with all his strength.
The twin diesel engines whined in protest, reversing thrust violently. The boat spun sideways in the churning sea, its hull scraping against the outer edge of the granite reef with a horrifying, metallic screech that tore through the fiberglass hull.
Water began pouring into the lower engine bay.
Roman walked back to where Victor was trapped against the deck, struggling desperately against his restraints as seawater washed over his boots.
“Where is the rest of the network, Victor?” Roman demanded, standing over him as the ship listed fifteen degrees to port. “Who else paid off Detective Miller? Who else helped you manipulate the hospital records?”
“It was... it was Senator Kane!” Victor choked out, sobbing hysterically as the ice-cold seawater rose to his knees. “Kane’s political action committee funded the offshore accounts! He wanted control of the Port Haven container terminal for his shipping donors! Please, Roman! Don't leave me here! Key is in my coat pocket!”
Roman reached down, pulled the iron key from Victor’s pocket, and unlocked one side of the restraints, dragging the sobbing man by his collar onto the upper observation deck just as an inflatable rescue boat—captained by Eli Cross—cut through the waves alongside the sinking vessel.
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“Boss!” Eli shouted over the roar of the surf, holding the rescue boat steady against the hull. “Jump!”
Roman threw Victor Vance into the bottom of the inflatable boat like a sack of wet flour, then stepped over the gunwale just as the yacht’s stern slipped beneath the dark Atlantic waters, swallowed whole by the ocean.
