Chapter 2 - The Infrastructure of Retaliation
The transport vehicle was an armored commercial laundry van, its side panels reinforced with four-millimeter ballistic plate and its interior smelling heavily of industrial bleach and wet linen. Luca Moretti sat on a metal storage chest opposite the gurney, his fingers methodically cleaning the screen of a encrypted satellite terminal with a small piece of microfiber cloth.
"The district attorney’s office has just issued an emergency warrant for the retrieval of a material witness in the harbor fraud case," Marcus reported from the front seat, his eyes tracking the digital mirrors that monitored the traffic flow along the Southeast Expressway. "Grant signed the authorization himself at 12:32. He’s utilizing the state police special operations unit to execute the warrant at Mercy Harbor. They’re currently clearing the perimeter fences on the north side of the hospital."
"He’s forty minutes behind the timeline," Luca said, his thumb pressing the terminal's entry key to clear the maritime tracking logs for the western pier. "He spent too much time trying to convince the managing editor of the Globe to hold the morning edition until his office could provide a coordinated statement regarding his wife’s 'sudden medical leave.' He still believes the media is an asset he can manage through his communications director."
He looked down at Claire. The medical team at the private clinic inside the Moretti shipyard had already replaced her temporary lines with a high-flow central venous catheter. The room was subterranean, built into the old limestone foundations of the dry-dock pump house, three feet below the waterline of the Mystic River. The walls were unpainted concrete, completely clear of any electronic signatures that could be identified by the federal listening posts on Beacon Hill.
"Why did you go back to the house, Claire?" Luca asked.
Claire lay under a green wool military blanket, her left arm stabilized by a plaster splint. "The ledger wasn't in the safe, Luca. Grant had already moved the original title deeds for the Chelsea easement to the private vault at the Commonwealth Bank. He’s using the state’s eminent domain power to condemn the shipping terminals before the primary election in November. He’s already taken forty million from the New York investment group to clear the line for the automated rail spur."
"I am aware of the financial alignment," Luca said. "The Singapore line notified my office of the credit transfer three days ago. What I am asking is why you allowed him to touch your person before you cleared the kitchen door."
Claire’s lower lip caught between her teeth, her gray eyes turning toward the exposed copper piping that ran across the concrete ceiling. "He had the baby’s medical registry forms on his desk, Luca. He told me that if I left the Beacon Hill property before the primary vote, he’d use the family court's psychological evaluation clause to have the child declared an asset of the state's dependent protective system. He had the signatures from two clinic directors already logged in his legal database."
Luca stood up from the storage chest. His canvas jacket made a sharp, dry rustling sound in the damp air of the pump house. He walked to the iron door that connected the clinic room to the main machine floor, where three industrial diesel generators were idling with a low, bone-deep hum that vibrated through the limestone floorboards.
"Marcus," Luca said into his radio. "Call the compliance partner at the Commonwealth Bank. Tell him that the Moretti Trust is initiating an immediate liquidity audit of their secondary mortgage pool. Every loan they’ve issued to the Beacon Hill redevelopment group over the last forty-eight months needs to be verified by a federal compliance officer before the market opens at nine o'clock."
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"That will trigger an automatic freeze on Grant's campaign ledger, Luca," Marcus said over the static. "The national committee will pull their endorsement within two hours if the compliance logs show an un-collateralized liability over five hundred thousand dollars."
"That is the intention," Luca said, his fingers tightening around the cold iron handle of the door. "Grant Vale spent two years telling the voters of this commonwealth that he was going to tear my family out of the waterfront by the roots. He forgot that the roots of this city aren't made of law books; they’re made of the wooden pilings beneath his kitchen, and I’ve owned the title to the timber since his father was running numbers for the dockworkers' union."
