Chapter 11 - Infiltration
The Boston Harbor Hotel rose against the stormy sky like a monolithic fortress of glass and granite. Blue and white searchlights swept the entrance, illuminating the fleet of black limousines and town cars arriving for the Mercer Foundation Gala.
Inside the grand ballroom on the second floor, a classical orchestra played, mingling with the low murmur of Boston’s elite. Diamond necklaces, tuxedoes, vintage champagne—all paid for with blood.
I didn't use the front entrance.
I docked the Zodiac beneath the hotel’s private marina wharf, slipping into the service conduits using the maintenance key I’d taken from Keller’s body. The wound on my ribs burned like an open furnace, bound tightly with duct tape and gauze from my field kit.
I stripped off my soaked tactical vest, throwing on a black server’s uniform I pulled from an unlocked employee locker in the basement. I tucked Claire's red notebook into my inside pocket, my suppressed sidearm pressed flat against my spine beneath the apron.
My phone chimed with an anonymous ping. An audio file had been routed through an encrypted relay.
I put in an earpiece and hit play.
It was Owen’s voice, recorded ten minutes ago:
>*Daniel... if you get this, Marcus intercepted me at Rowes Wharf. He shot me in the stomach. I managed to drag myself behind the trash compactors, but he took Lily. He has her in the Presidential Suite, Room 1602. Julian and Vanessa are with them. They have a notary. Daniel, forgive me... please save your baby...*
The audio cut out with a wet, ragged gasp.
Owen was dying. Or already dead.
I stepped onto the private service elevator, sliding Keller’s master keycard through the digital reader. The light flashed green.
*FLOOR 16 - PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.*
The elevator hummed smoothly as it ascended.
I pulled my sidearm, checking the chamber. Thirteen rounds.
My reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator looked like a ghost. Hollow eyes, smeared with grime and dried blood, but filled with a terrifying, absolute clarity. For fourteen months, I had been the broken husband, the mourning father trying to hold together a fractured life.
That man died in the Atlantic tonight.
The elevator chimed.
The doors slid open onto the carpeted hallway of the sixteenth floor. Two Aegis Red guards in dark suits stood outside Suite 1602.
Before they could even register the server walking toward them with a tray, I dropped the tray and raised my weapon.
Two suppressed coughs: *phut... phut.*
Both men dropped without a sound, their bodies slumping against the mahogany wainscoting.
May you like
I stepped over them, kicked the double doors open, and walked into the lion’s den.
***
