Chapter 6 - The Trap at the Pier
The sharp, heavy clack of rifle safeties clicking off echoed like a chorus of death down the narrow concrete mouth of the prohibition tunnel.
Gabriel didn’t hesitate. With his good arm, he shoved me hard behind a thick, rust-corroded iron support pillar just as a barrage of high-caliber rounds chewed through the rotting wooden slats of the exit shack above. Splinters exploded outward like a cloud of needles, raining down on our heads.
“Down!” Carmine roared, dropping to one knee and unleashing a blistering, rhythmic string of fire from his submachine gun into the darkness of the river docks.
The heavy, acrid smell of burnt gunpowder instantly overpowered the damp scent of the Hudson River. Muzzle flashes illuminated the gloom, casting strobed, violent shadows against the damp brick walls. A muffled cry from the dock indicated Carmine’s bullets had found a target, but the answering fire was relentless. Heavy slugs hammered into our concrete cover, sending white sparks dancing across the floor.
“We’re boxed in!” Carmine yelled over the roar of combat, his magazine clicking empty. He slammed a fresh clip home with brutal efficiency. “The exit’s covered by at least a half-dozen shooters with military-grade gear. They’re waiting for us to pop our heads out of this rat hole!”
Gabriel’s face was carved from granite. He pressed his back flat against the concrete pillar, sweat beading across his forehead, his left shoulder visibly throbbing beneath the blood-soaked bandages where the fresh stitches strained under his physical exertion. He looked over at me, huddled on the wet floor with my hands clamped over my ears, breathing in short, terrified gasps.
“Elena,” Gabriel’s voice cut through the chaos, steady and chillingly calm. “Look at me.”
I forced my tear-blurred eyes to meet his.
“There’s a secondary maintenance hatch about twenty feet back,” he said, pointing a steady finger toward the gloom behind us. “It leads up into the old municipal storm drain grid running beneath 12th Avenue. It’s narrow, and it’s full of sludge, but it comes out behind the enemy's perimeter.”
“You want us to crawl through the sewers?” I choked out, staring at the pitch-black opening he indicated.
“Unless you’d rather stay here and be used as target practice for Victor Rossi’s clean-up crew,” Gabriel retorted with a grim, humorless smile. “Carmine, cover the front! We’re making a tactical retreat!”
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Carmine didn’t argue. He stepped out from behind the pillar for two agonizing seconds, laying down a blinding wall of lead that pinned the snipers to the outer docks, while Gabriel grabbed my arm, hauling me up into the blackness of the secondary pipe just as a fresh wave of gunfire splintered our former cover to pieces.
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