Chapter 2 - THE FORTRESS
Gwen lasted two hours inside the guest room.
It was probably meant to impress people.
Italian marble bathroom.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
A bed large enough to land a helicopter on.
Gwen hated all of it.
Luxury made her restless when she did not understand who had paid for it.
She showered, changed into jeans and an old charcoal sweater, then ignored Thomas’s instruction to remain upstairs.
The fourth-floor hallway ended at a security door.
Gwen pressed the intercom.
“No.”
The guard’s voice came immediately.
“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”
“Mr. Thomas said you stay on this floor.”
“Tell Mr. Thomas I’m going downstairs.”
“No.”
Gwen examined the keypad.
“Fine.”
Three minutes later, the guard opened the door after hearing metallic scraping near the panel.
He found Gwen sitting against the wall holding a screwdriver.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You were taking apart the access panel.”
“I was thinking about taking apart the access panel.”
He stared.
“Open the door.”
He did.
Gwen walked into the operations center.
Roman sat at the head of a long table.
His forehead had been properly stitched. His injured leg was braced. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Around him sat six men discussing maps of the waterfront.
Thomas saw Gwen.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Roman lifted one hand.
Thomas stopped.
Gwen walked closer.
A map showed the southern shipping terminal.
Roman tapped Warehouse Four.
“Vane thinks I’m dead. He’ll take the terminal tonight.”
One adviser said, “We abandon the perimeter. His men enter. Once they’re concentrated between Three and Four, we shut the gates.”
Roman looked toward another map.
“Fuel storage?”
“Ready.”
Gwen stared.
“You’re going to set the terminal on fire.”
Every face turned toward her.
Roman said, “You weren’t invited.”
“You weren’t invited onto my couch either.”
Thomas rubbed his forehead.
Roman’s mouth twitched.
“Why are you here?”
“Your people put me in a hotel room and forgot I’m not luggage.”
She stepped toward the map.
“If this Vane guy knows the docks, your plan won’t work.”
One adviser laughed.
Gwen pointed toward Warehouse Four.
“There are drainage tunnels underneath it.”
The man frowned.
“Not on the municipal plans.”
“Because dockworkers built half of them illegally in the seventies.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“How do you know?”
“My father repaired harbor machinery. I spent half my childhood where children definitely weren’t supposed to be.”
She traced the old marsh line with one finger.
“The terminal sits on reclaimed ground. There’s a canal outlet here. If Vane’s people know the old routes, they’ll leave through the drainage tunnel before your fire traps them.”
Roman looked toward Thomas.
“Confirm it.”
Thomas made one call.
Five minutes later, he returned.
“She’s right.”
The room went quiet.
Roman looked at Gwen.
“You fix outboards?”
“I fix things.”
“Anything else?”
“Bad plans, apparently.”
Roman gave orders to seal the tunnel.
Gwen’s satisfaction lasted until after midnight.
An orange flash illuminated the distant skyline.
The southern terminal burned.
News reports initially described an industrial explosion.
Roman’s people knew differently.
Thirty enemy soldiers had entered the terminal.
None came out.
Gwen stood beside Roman at the fortified building’s western window.
The clouds reflected orange above the harbor.
“You used what I told you.”
“Yes.”
“To kill them.”
“They came to seize my territory and kill my men.”
“That doesn’t make it easy.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
Gwen looked at him.
Most violent men she had met in small coastal bars made excuses.
Roman did not.
That disturbed her more.
“You could’ve caught them.”
“Some.”
“You didn’t try.”
“I’m not asking you to approve.”
“Good.”
Roman leaned against the window frame to take pressure off his injured leg.
“Tomorrow Sullivan Vane knows I survived.”
“And?”
“He knows someone pulled me from that aircraft.”
Gwen folded her arms.
“You keep saying that like I’m supposed to panic.”
“I’m telling you because pretending you can return to yesterday would be dishonest.”
“My life isn’t yours to reorganize.”
“No.”
Roman looked at her.
“But it has already changed.”
Gwen hated that he was probably right.
The following morning, she asked to see wreckage recovered from the jet.
Thomas gave her a strange look.
“Why?”
“Because aircraft don’t usually explode themselves.”
“The investigators already confirmed thermite.”
“Then your investigators can survive a mechanic looking at it.”
Several pieces had been recovered before the tide swallowed the fuselage completely.
Gwen spent three hours examining burned fuel-line brackets, fragments of cowling, and damaged fasteners.
Roman eventually entered the workshop area beneath the fortified building.
“You look happier covered in grease.”
“I trust machines.”
“Machines kill people.”
“People decide whether to maintain them.”
She held up a scorched clamp.
“This didn’t come from the original fuel assembly.”
Roman approached.
“How do you know?”
“Different alloy. New machining marks.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone installed it recently.”
Thomas called Roman from across the room.
“The jet was serviced yesterday morning at our private hangar.”
Gwen looked between them.
“Who had access?”
Thomas answered.
“Six mechanics. Flight staff. Senior operations.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“You think the sabotage happened inside my own hangar?”
“I think somebody touched that fuel system very recently.”
Thomas began making calls.
Gwen continued examining the clamp.
A stamped mark remained visible beneath the heat damage.
She recognized it.
Not the company.
The pattern.
Three tiny punch marks beside the manufacturing number.
Her father used to mark replacement parts exactly that way when he modified them outside factory specifications.
Other mechanics had similar habits.
“Someone hand-fitted this.”
Roman watched her.
“Can you identify who?”
“Maybe.”
She examined another fragment.
There.
The same marks.
Then Thomas’s phone rang.
His face changed while listening.
“What?”
Roman’s voice dropped.
Thomas ended the call.
“One of the six mechanics from the hangar is dead.”
Gwen stopped working.
“How?”
“His car went off the bridge this morning.”
Roman looked toward the burned clamp.
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No,” Gwen said.
“What does that tell you?”
She set the part down.
“That whoever sabotaged your plane is cleaning up.”
Roman’s phone vibrated.
A message.
He read it.
Then handed the phone to Thomas.
Thomas swore.
“What?”
Gwen demanded.
Roman looked toward her.
“A photograph was sent to one of my private numbers.”
He turned the screen.
The image showed Gwen’s coastal house.
Taken that morning.
A man stood beside her father’s workshop holding a red gasoline container.
Gwen’s face went cold.
Roman immediately called for vehicles.
Thomas started issuing orders.
Gwen grabbed her pry bar.
Roman blocked her path.
“You stay here.”
She stared at him.
“You’ve known me less than two days and somehow managed to say the stupidest possible thing.”
“Gwen.”
“That is my home.”
“And somebody is waiting for you to go there.”
“Then they’re going to have a disappointing morning.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“You think this is another engine you can fix?”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“But nobody burns my father’s shop while I hide in your fortress.”
Roman held her gaze.
Then looked toward Thomas.
“Prepare the armored vehicle.”
Thomas nodded.
Roman turned back to Gwen.
“You stay beside me.”
She lifted the pry bar.
“Try keeping up.”
For the first time since the plane crash, Roman laughed.
Then his expression disappeared as another message reached Thomas.
May you like
This one contained only five words.
BRING THE WOMAN OR IT BURNS.
