Chapter 7 - The Savannah Terminal
The private jet touched down at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport forty minutes ahead of schedule.
By the time the black armored SUV rolled through the security gates of the Port of Savannah container terminal, the Atlantic wind was howling off the harbor, driving a cold, stinging mist across the rows of towering multi-colored shipping containers stacked twenty high against the grey evening sky.
Gideon Wolf sat in the back of the SUV. He wore a heavy black cashmere overcoat, his shoulders squared, his face carved out of stone. Sitting beside him in the leather-lined interior was Norah Blake—no longer wearing her navy maid’s tunic, but a simple, dark wool coat Finch had ordered from a boutique in Manhattan.
She wasn't supposed to be here. When Finch argued that the port was no place for a domestic liaison, Gideon had simply looked at his second-in-command with those dead-black eyes and said, “She sees what we miss, Arthur. If we’re walking into a trap, I want someone in the room who isn't looking for a gun.”
The SUV pulled up beside a massive gantry crane where three men were waiting in the howling wind: two senior dock supervisors and a federal customs inspector who looked like he was about to vomit into a puddle of diesel fuel.
Finch killed the engine. The doors opened, and the damp, salty air rushed into the cabin.
Gideon stepped out of the vehicle first, his heavy boots hitting the wet asphalt with a solid, unhurried thud. He didn't use a cane. He didn't lean on Finch. He stood six-foot-two against the gale, looking like an old-world monarch inspecting a conquered province.
“Report,” Gideon said.
The customs inspector—a middle-aged man with sweat freezing on his forehead despite the bitter cold—stepped forward, holding a manifest clipboard against his chest like a shield.
“Mr. Wolf... thank God you’re here,” the inspector stammered. “Container 480-Delta. It came in from Naples this morning on the MSC Victoria. It was flagged for routine random x-ray at the secondary terminal.”
“And?” Finch prompted, his hand resting casually near his coat holster.
“It’s not machinery parts,” the inspector whispered, his voice shaking. “The x-ray showed dense, organic packing material across the entire front wall. When our team cut the secondary seal and pulled back the crating... we found four human bodies.”
Norah, standing quietly behind Gideon’s shoulder, felt her breath catch in her throat.
Gideon didn't flinch. His face didn't change by a single muscle.
“Whose men?” Gideon asked softly.
“That’s the thing,” the inspector swallowed hard. “They’re not your men. And they’re not Moretti’s or Rossi’s. They’re federal agents. Two DEA operatives from the Atlanta field office, and two ATF investigators who went missing three weeks ago during the interstate arms probe.”
Finch’s head snapped toward Gideon. “A setup.”
“A complete, textbook setup,” Gideon murmured, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the distant stack of metal containers towering in the mist. “Someone wanted to plant federal bodies inside my shipping terminal while my health was failing, triggering an FBI lockdown that would freeze every asset I own before my heart even stopped beating.”
“Who had access to the terminal shipping manifests?” Finch asked, his voice turning lethal. “Only the inner circle knows the code numbers for Container 480-Delta.”
Norah stepped forward, her eyes scanning the wet asphalt, the rows of lights, and the open door of the security shack thirty yards away.
“Not the inner circle,” Norah said quietly.
Finch and Gideon both turned to look at her.
“What do you mean?” Finch asked.
“Mr. Finch,” Norah said, pointing toward the security shack where a lone closed-circuit monitor flickered through the greasy glass window. “When I cleaned the estate’s security office last week, I noticed something strange about the network routing. The backup feed for the Savannah terminal wasn't routing through your encrypted satellite relay in Jersey. It was splitting off through a commercial broadband connection in a suburban office park in Atlanta.”
Gideon’s eyes flared with sudden, intense clarity. “An unauthorized mirror feed.”
“Yes,” Norah said. “Whoever planted those bodies didn't just guess the manifest number. They’ve been watching your terminals in real-time for months, waiting for the exact moment your health failed so they could drop the anchor.”
Gideon looked down at the young woman standing beside him in the freezing Atlantic wind. The fear that had once defined her presence in his sickroom was entirely gone, replaced by the cold, razor-sharp clarity of an auditor who had found a missing decimal point that changed the entire balance sheet.
“Arthur,” Gideon said without breaking eye contact with Norah.
May you like
“Boss?”
“Call the team in Atlanta,” Gideon’s voice rolled like thunder across the dark harbor. “Tell them to clear out that office park by midnight. And bring me whoever is sitting at that monitor.”
