Chapter 14 - Fire on the Hudson
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KA-BOOM!
A blinding fireball of ignited marine fuel engulfed the front of the black Suburban inside the enclosed timber boathouse, blowing out the SUV’s front tires and sending burning oil splashing across the wooden roof beams right above the machine gunner’s head!
"Lorenzo!" Clara screamed, scrambling up to the stern rail of the speeding motorboat as it shot out of the burning icehouse into the open, fog-shrouded waters of the Hudson River.
Through the curtain of roaring orange flames and collapsing timber inside the stone jetty, she saw dark figures scrambling away from the burning vehicle—and no sign of Lorenzo on the dock!
"Turn the boat around!" Clara cried, grabbing Rico’s shoulder at the helm as bullets from the surviving mercenaries on the riverbank zipped across the dark water around them. "He’s still inside!"
"I can't, Miss Clara!" Rico shouted, his face grim as he pushed the throttle all the way forward, angling the bow into the thick river fog. "He ordered me to get you, the child, and Don Vittorio across the river no matter what! If I turn back into those rifles, we’re all dead!"
Clara stood frozen at the stern rail, her hands gripping the wet mahogany until her bandaged fingers bled anew, staring back as the nineteenth-century icehouse roof collapsed inward in a shower of orange sparks against the night sky.
Beside her in the cabin, little Lily started to cry softly, clutching her white rabbit against her chest.
"Uncle Enzo is swimming, Mommy," Lily whispered fiercely through her tears, refusing to believe the man who had opened the blue door could be gone. "He’s a big strong swimmer."
Vittorio Drago placed a heavy, steady hand on Clara’s trembling shoulder, drawing her down behind the armored fiberglass bulkhead as the boat disappeared into the impenetrable gray mist of the Tappan Zee.
"Lorenzo Bellini didn't survive thirty-four years as Salvatore’s son to burn up in a boathouse, girl," the old Don said, though his eyes were dark and troubled as he looked at the leather courier pack sitting on the passenger seat. "He bought us ten minutes to get this pack to dry land. Don't waste what he paid for."
Twenty minutes later, the Chris-Craft bumped quietly against a private wooden pier hidden behind a screen of weeping willows in Nyack, on the western shore of the Hudson.
Two of Drago’s local soldiers were waiting with a warm, inconspicuous gray minivan. Within half an hour, they were inside a secluded stone farmhouse in Rockland County, miles away from the sirens and helicopters now swarming the opposite riverbank in Westchester.
While Lily slept exhausted on the living room sofa beneath three blankets and Rico had his leg wound properly dressed in the kitchen, Clara sat at the farmhouse dining table with Vittorio Drago, staring at the open steel ammunition box.
"If Deputy Director Harlan knows Lorenzo escaped with these ledgers—or if he thinks we have them—every airport, highway, and bridge in New York State will be crawling with federal task forces by midnight," Vittorio said grimly, pouring two glasses of neat scotch. "You cannot go to the local police or the FBI in Manhattan. Harlan owns the Southern District."
"Then who watches the watchmen?" Clara asked, picking up the VHS cassette tape labeled in Sofia Bellini’s handwriting. "We have a 1998 videotape of Harlan and Judge Sterling taking bribes in Salvatore’s study, plus the Geneva bank key."
"Judge Arthur Sterling isn't a circuit judge anymore," Vittorio said, tapping the name on the ledger page. "He’s the senior Senator sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington—and he’s announcing his campaign for Attorney General tomorrow afternoon at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan."
Clara’s hazel eyes went cold and sharp as diamonds.
"Tomorrow afternoon at the Plaza?" she repeated slowly. "Live network television cameras from every major news station in the country?"
Vittorio paused with his glass halfway to his mouth, looking across the table at the quiet housekeeper who had spent six years scrubbing floors while plotting vengeance for her murdered sister.
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"What are you thinking, Clara?"
"I'm thinking," Clara said, standing up from the table, "that if Lorenzo jumped off that boat to save us, I’m not sitting in a farmhouse waiting to find out if he’s dead or alive."
