Chapter 12 - Rising Water in the Dark
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The freezing black water of the Chicago River hit their knees in five seconds flat, surging down the narrow six-foot-wide brick tunnel with terrifying hydrostatic pressure as the air temperature plummeted and the roar of rushing water echoed off the arched ceiling!
"Push the cart with the drums toward the Kinzie bulkhead—move!" Roman roared to the four ironworkers, who immediately shoved the heavy rail cart rolling down the slight downgrade toward the casino basement door four hundred yards away while Matteo laid down a blinding burst of automatic fire into the curve of the tunnel to stop Victor’s advancing scuba-equipped gunmen from rounding the bend!
As Tessa turned to run behind the cart, the surging waist-deep current swept a loose five-hundred-pound timber railroad tie off the side wall, slamming it straight across the back of her boots and knocking her off her feet under the black, churning surface!
Freezing river water filled her mouth and blinded her eyes as her injured right hand scraped against the iron rail tracks on the floor, her heavy soaked jacket dragging her down beneath the rushing current.
Before the dark current could sweep her around the side junction, a pair of iron hands plunged beneath the black water, seized the front harness of her Kevlar vest, and wrenched her straight up out of the torrent!
Roman didn't set her back down on her feet in the chest-deep surge.
Keeping his suppressed rifle slung over his right shoulder, Roman locked his left arm squarely under her waist, lifted her high against his chest so her head stayed well above the rising water line rising toward the brick crown of the tunnel, and plowed forward through the roaring current with the unstoppable power of a battering ram!
"Hold onto my neck and watch the rear with my sidearm!" Roman shouted into her ear as water rose to his ribs.
Tessa locked her legs around his waist, drew Roman’s backup SIG Sauer from his high chest rig with her uninjured left hand, and aimed backward over his broad wet shoulder into the dark water tunnel behind them.
Thirty yards back, emerging around the flooded brick bend wearing black neoprene dry-suits and waterproof tactical headlamps, came three of Victor’s hitmen—riding the fast current forward while raising waterproof Glock pistols fitted with laser sights straight at the back of Matteo’s and Roman’s heads!
Matteo was struggling through the four-foot water twenty feet ahead of them, helping the ironworkers heave the heavy drum cart over the raised eighteen-inch steel sill of the Kinzie Street flood bulkhead door!
"Roman, three behind us in the water—ten yards!" Tessa shouted over the deafening roar of the river.
"Brace against my shoulder and shoot the headlamps!" Roman barked, never slowing his powerful stride through the freezing current for a fraction of a second.
Tessa rested her left forearm flat across the rock-solid muscle of Roman’s shoulder, lined up the glowing green tritium sights of his SIG Sauer on the center headlamp bobbing thirty feet back in the dark tunnel, exhaled half a breath the way her father had taught her at the rifle range in high school, and squeezed the trigger three times.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
In the enclosed six-foot brick tube, the muzzle flash lit up the churning black water like lightning. The center headlamp shattered in a spray of crimson and glass, dropping the lead swimmer beneath the surface!
The second gunman fired wildly—his bullet ricocheting off the curved wet brick four inches from Roman’s ear—before Roman spun half-around at the threshold of the steel bulkhead door, braced himself against the iron jamb with Tessa still held tight in his left arm, and emptied half a magazine from his carbine into the dark water, eliminating the remaining two swimmers!
"Inside—pull the wheel!"
Roman lunged across the eighteen-inch steel sill into the dry concrete sub-basement of his riverboat casino, setting Tessa on her feet as Matteo and two ironworkers threw their weight onto the massive cast-iron dogging wheel of the submarine flood door, slamming the three-inch steel plate shut against the rubber gasket just as the water on the other side hit the ceiling of the tunnel with a booming THUD!
Water sprayed briefly through the upper bolt hole before Matteo hammered the final steel wedge home, sealing the raging river behind three inches of Bethlehem steel.
Inside the warm concrete boiler room of the casino basement, everyone collapsed against the walls, coughing and dripping freezing mud onto the floor alongside the three rescued stainless-steel drums of carfentanil.
Except Roman didn't sit down.
Dripping wet from head to toe, his white shirt plastered to the hard slabs of his chest beneath his tactical vest, Roman had Tessa pinned gently against the dry concrete wall between his arms, his hands running rapidly over her arms, ribs, and legs to make sure the railroad tie or the ricochet hadn't broken a bone.
"I'm okay—just wet," Tessa gasped, shivering as she looked up into his blazing gunmetal eyes from three inches away. "And I shot the light out like you said."
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Roman stared down at her—at the twenty-three-year-old hotel maid who had just fired a 9mm pistol over his shoulder in a flooding subterranean tunnel without flinching once—and the fierce, dark look in his eyes nearly stopped her heart.
"If you weren't shivering like a drowned kitten right now, Tessa Cole," Roman growled softly against her wet forehead, his hands spanning her waist beneath the soaked jacket, "I wouldn't let you out of this room until noon."
