Chapter 6 - THE CALUMET WAREHOUSE
The Calumet River industrial park was a wasteland of rusted steel mills, rotting wooden piers, and decaying brick warehouses built at the turn of the twentieth century.
A thick, yellowish fog hung low over the black water, smelling of sulfur, diesel exhaust, and stagnant mud.
Our black Suburban rolled to a stop two hundred yards down from Warehouse 14—a sprawling, three-story corrugated iron structure with broken windows and a rusted crane hanging over the river bank.
I sat in the middle row, wearing a Kevlar vest beneath my dark jacket. Sitting beside me was Marcus, holding a silenced MP5 submachine gun, while Detective Vance sat in the front passenger seat with two tactical officers from his private enforcement unit.
"Thermal imaging shows four targets inside," Marcus said, monitoring a small tablet screen that displayed orange heat signatures through the metal walls of the building. "Three standing near the central loading bay. One seated at an improvised desk."
"Which one is Arthur?" I asked.
"The seated target," Marcus pointed to the screen. "He's holding a glass. The three standing around him are armed."
"We go in quiet through the river access door," Detective Vance instructed, sliding a fresh magazine into his sidearm. "Julian, you stay behind Marcus. If firing starts, you drop to the floor. Understood?"
"Understood," I lied.
We moved through the thick fog like shadows, our boots making no sound against the wet gravel.
The river access door was a rusted iron panel held shut by a simple padlock. Marcus applied a pair of heavy hydraulic bolt cutters.
CRACK.
The shackle snapped silently. Marcus eased the door open half an inch, peering into the dark interior.
The warehouse smelled of wet concrete, old machinery fuel, and burning tobacco.
We slipped inside, moving behind a row of stacked wooden crates containing rusted boat parts.
Fifty yards away, under the harsh white glare of two hanging construction floodlights, stood Arthur Whitaker.
He was sitting in a folding canvas chair, wearing a long camel-hair coat, holding a crystal tumbler filled with scotch. Standing beside him was Thomas Vance—a thick-necked, balding man in a leather jacket—and two mercenaries armed with assault rifles.
"...they should have called by now, Arthur," Thomas Vance was saying, pacing nervously across the concrete floor, flicking a half-burned cigarette onto the ground. "It’s been an hour since the breach team went over the perimeter fence."
Arthur took a slow, methodical sip of his scotch, adjusting his silver cufflink.
"Patience, Thomas," Arthur said smoothly, his voice echoing off the high iron roof. "Julian’s security is competent, but they are civilian guards. The team I hired executed three political extractions in Bogota last year. Julian is likely dead, the maid is silenced, and the boy is gone."
"And the money?" Thomas asked, stopping in front of Arthur's chair. "When does the foundation wire the twelve million to my account in Nassau?"
Arthur smiled—a cold, serpent-like curve of his lips.
"The moment Julian’s will is read, Thomas. As sole executor of the Whitaker estate and chairman of the foundation board, I will assume full control of the sixty-million-dollar reserved pool by Monday afternoon. You will receive your fee, and you will spend the rest of your life enjoying the Caribbean sun."
"You're a real bastard, Arthur," Thomas chuckled, lighting another cigarette. "Six years ago, I thought you were crazy when you told me to ram Rebecca's car off County Road 9. But I gotta hand it to you... you played the long game."
"Rebecca was an obstacle," Arthur said casually, swirling the golden liquor in his glass. "She was auditing the foundation's real estate holdings. She discovered the eight-million-dollar deficit I used to cover my bad investments in Singapore. If she had reached Julian that morning, I would have spent the last six years in a federal penitentiary."
"And the kid?" Thomas asked. "Why didn't you let me put a bullet in the kid six years ago?"
"Because a dead four-year-old child found in a burned car generates a homicide investigation that never closes," Arthur explained patiently, as if lecturing a young child on economics. "A missing child, however... a missing child creates a broken, grieving father who spends tens of millions chasing ghost leads while leaving his company entirely in my hands. Lucas was far more useful to me lost than dead."
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I stepped out from behind the wooden crates.
"Is that right, Arthur?" I said, my voice cutting through the damp warehouse air like a steel blade.
