Blood on the Scaffolding

Leandro

Every tunnel under Mirasola smells like wet limestone and old rot.

Dark water.

Dead promises.

The slurry conduit runs four feet wide beneath the foundation of the Meridian tower. Cold harbor runoff laps against the soles of my combat boots. Overhead, three hundred thousand tons of green concrete hang suspended on shear pins and wet bedrock.

Carmela walks two paces ahead of me. Her spine is straight, her dark hair pinned back with drywall wire. The decrypted telemetry drive is secure in her inside pocket, and she pulls the titanium shears from her tactical loop.

She does not shiver.

She does not slow down.

The heavy clatter of tactical boots echoes down the conduit fifty yards behind us. Flashlights sweep the wet curved walls, cutting white knives through the dark mist.

"Two men left," I say. My voice stays at a low rasp, swallowed by the rushing runoff. "The survivors from the terminal. Subguns. Kevlar plates."

Carmela stops at the edge of a concrete junction. She raises her palm against the raw masonry wall, fingers spreading across a hairline fracture in the joint.

"They have the gear," she murmurs, glancing back at me. "They don't have the elevation."

"Explain."

"This is the overflow junction for the south caisson," she says. Her thumb taps the seam where the conduit ceiling splits into a vertical riser shaft. "Ten yards ahead, the bedrock drops six feet into a sediment trap. The acoustic profile is concave. The blast down here will blow out their eardrums, and their own muzzle flashes will blind their night vision."

"And the riser?"

"Unreinforced," she says. "Castaneza crew poured it too fast last spring. One heavy impact on the lateral strut drops the iron grating across the channel."

A feral heat settles behind my ribs.

I want her blueprints. I want the cold, calculating mind that looks at five hundred tons of drowning mud and sees an execution chamber.

"You drop the grating," I say. "I will handle the cleanup."

"Try not to shoot the ceiling," she says dryly. "I like my lungs without five tons of wet grout inside them."

"I am an efficient man, little architect."

"You are an expensive man, Leandro. Don't waste my concrete."

Gallows wit. Calm blood under fire.

She slides past the iron strut, slipping into the dark pocket behind the riser column. She is silent as a phantom.

I step into the shadow of the eastern shear wall and raise my Glock 20, ready to fire.

The beam of the first flashlight hits the wet curve of the conduit.

Two figures push through the muck, MP5s raised to their shoulders. Their sweeping beams bounce off the wet limestone, reflecting a blinding glare off the pooled runoff.

Rodrigo's remaining sweepers. The survivors from the terminal upstairs.

They step onto the slick lip of the sediment trap.

Carmela moves.

She jams the hardened steel shaft of her shears into the release pin of the lateral strut. She wrenches the lever down with both hands, using her entire body weight as leverage.

Crack.

The rusted shear bolt shears clean off.

A two-ton iron security grating drops from the riser ceiling. It slams into the concrete bed with an ear-splitting crash, throwing a curtain of mud and water across the narrow passage.

The sudden roar reverberates through the hollow tube like a detonating artillery shell.

The lead scout flinches, his weapon jerking upward toward the ceiling. His flashlight catches the iron bars, throwing his vision into disarray.

I step out from the shear wall.

I do not shout. I do not offer terms.

I fire twice.

The heavy ten-millimeter slugs punch through the center of the first shooter's chest rig. The kinetic force lifts him off his boots and throws him backward into the muck.

The second man—the squad leader—scrambles backward into the mud in a blind panic. He swings his muzzle wildly, but I step inside his guard before he can find his footing. My left hand clamps around his barrel, driving it down into the runoff, while my right knocks his weapon free.

I close the distance in three long strides.

I plant the heel of my tactical boot directly onto his right kneecap.

I lean my weight down.

Snap.

A shrill scream tears out of his throat, echoing up the riser shaft until I press the warm steel barrel of my sidearm between his teeth.

The conduit falls dead silent, save for the hum of the city above and the drip of harbor water.

Carmela steps out from behind the riser. She stands at the edge of the iron grating, her eyes dark and steady on the puddle of red expanding around my boots.

She does not flinch from the blood. She looks at the bodies the same way she looks at broken rebar: a structural defect cleared from the site.

"He's the lead contractor," she says quietly.

I look down at the man beneath my boot.

His face is gray under the muck. Blood leaks from his nose and ears from the concussive echo. His eyes roll frantically in their sockets, staring up at the barrel wedged against his tongue.

"You have five seconds to keep your teeth," I say. My voice is flat. Level. "Who gave Rodrigo the C4 for the Meridian foundation?"

The man gags on the steel. He tries to shake his head.

I grind my boot half an inch deeper into his shattered knee.

Bone fragments grind against cartilage. He lets out a choked, wet sob, his hands clawing uselessly at my trouser cuffs.

"I will take your knee first," I murmur. "Then your other leg. Then I will leave you here for the high tide to fill your mouth."

Carmela walks closer. She stops two inches from my shoulder, looking down at him with cold detachment.

"The detonators on Pillar Four had serial bands from the navy yard cache," she says, her tone conversational. "Rodrigo doesn't have the clearance for military surplus. Someone inside the Castaneza family handed him the keys to the armory."

The hitman's chest heaves. Sweat washes the grime from his temples.

He looks at me like a man who sees his own grave. The only choice left is how long it will take.

I ease the barrel out of his mouth just enough to let him speak.

"Valenti," the man gasps, coughing up a mouthful of red saliva. "Lieutenant Valenti. He cleared the freight crates at Pier Three last night."

Valenti.

My uncle's trusted logistics capo. The man who holds the keys to every distribution depot in the south harbor.

A traitor sitting at my uncle's right hand.

"Good," I say.

I pull the trigger.

The gunshot cracks sharp and final in the narrow concrete vault.

The hitman slumps motionless into the shallow runoff.

Carmela looks at the body, then looks up at me. Her expression is hard, carved from granite and dark fire.

"Valenti runs Don Tomas's inner ring," she says. "If he is working for Rodrigo, your uncle's house is already burning."

I step over the corpses, closing the space between us until my chest brushes hers. I reach out, my leather-gloved fingers cupping the side of her throat.

Her pulse beats steady and fast beneath my palm.

"Then we go to the villa," I say, my thumb tracing the sharp line of her jaw. "We give my uncle the head of his favorite lieutenant. And then we take his empire."

Carmela's lips curve into a faint, lethal smirk.

"Lead the way, husband."

I will tear down every wall standing between my wife and our throne.