The Butcher of Oakhaven

The Harbor Boss

The rain hit my face like cold needles the moment I stepped out of Warehouse Four. The heavy iron door clicked shut behind me, cutting off the low hiss of the ruptured steam pipe. My boots sank into two inches of standing mud on the gravel access road.

Every pulse of my heart drove a sharp spike of pain right behind my left eye. A warm line of blood trickled down my upper lip from my left nostril, washing away in the downpour before it could hit my chin. The retinal strain from using the static vision in the dark was severe, but I could not afford to stop.

Sterling’s men had arrived in a dark gray transport van parked thirty yards down the pier. The motor was still idling, its exhaust piping white steam into the black air.

I approached the driver side window with the nine millimeter handgun kept low against my right thigh. The driver was sitting back with his head tilted against the headrest, a pair of thick headphones clamped over his ears. He never heard me open the door.

I grabbed him by the collar of his tactical jacket, yanked him sideways out of the cab, and slammed him face down onto the wet gravel. He reached for his belt, but I stepped hard on his right wrist. Steel bone against concrete. He grunted, his fingers going limply open.

"Keys," I said.

He spat gravel, coughing. "In the ignition. Go ahead and take it. You are dead anyway, Vance. The whole dock is locked down."

I reached into his jacket pocket, took his spare magazine and his mobile phone, and kicked his sidearm into the harbor basin. Then I climbed into the van, pulled the door shut, and put the vehicle in gear.

The ledger lay on the passenger seat next to the radio handset. I opened the leather cover using one hand while steering down the narrow lane between stacked shipping containers. The pages were filled with hand written manifest numbers, dates, and payout amounts stamped with the initials G.P.

Gideon Pratt. Senior Dock Boss at Oakhaven Harbor.

Six years ago, Pratt was the man who managed the cargo bays where the military medical supplies were stored before the bombing. If Sterling was laundering money and moving illegal pharmaceutical trials through this port, Pratt was the gatekeeper holding the keys.

The pier exit was guarded by a chain link gate and a small wooden security booth. Two men in high visibility rain jackets stood under the awning, sipping hot coffee from paper cups. As the van approached, one of them stepped out and waved a flashlight, signaling for me to stop.

I did not slow down. I tapped the horn twice, mimicking the standard Foundation signal, and hit the high beams.

The guard threw his arm up to block the glare, stepping back toward the curb. I swung the van through the gap before the gate could drop, the side mirror scraping along the galvanized post with a metallic screech. By the time the guard shouted and reached for his radio, I was already turning onto the main coastal road toward the North Docks.

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the alley behind the Black Anchor Tavern. The pub sat on the water's edge, its weathered timber frame leaning slightly toward the salt marsh. The lower windows were dark, but a single yellow light burned on the second floor above the fish packing shed.

I shut off the engine, jammed the pistol into the waistband of my trousers, and slipped the ledger inside my coat.

The side door to the packing shed was locked with a heavy brass padlock. I did not waste time looking for a key. I used the butt of the stolen handgun to strike the latch twice at the exact stress point where the iron screws met the rotted frame. The wood split with a dull pop, and the door swung inward.

The smell of raw salt cod and cheap gin hit me instantly.

Gideon Pratt sat behind a cluttered oak desk in the corner of the loft, counting a stack of hundred dollar bills under a green banker lamp. He was fifty years old, thick around the middle, with thin gray hair plastered across a scarred scalp.

He did not look up when the door opened. "I told you boys to leave the cash boxes in the lower safe. I am not signing off on the midnight shipment until I see the manifest."

"The manifest is right here, Gideon," I said.

Pratt froze. The bill counter in his hand stopped moving. Slowly, he raised his head, his small gray eyes squinting through the dim lamplight.

"Vance," he whispered. His voice was raspy, worn down by forty years of tobacco and sea air. "You are supposed to be in Blackwood."

"I got out," I said, walking toward the desk. "And Sterling gave me a welcome back present at Warehouse Four."

Pratt looked at the blood on my collar, then down at the wet leather ledger I dropped onto the center of his desk. The book landed with a heavy thud, scattering his stacks of currency.

"Where did you get this?" Pratt asked, his hand drifting toward the open drawer on his right.

"Three seconds," I said.

He stopped his hand. He knew what that count meant. He had seen me treat injured dockworkers eight years ago before the hospital fell. He knew I did not make threats I could not execute.

"Sterling told me you were dead," Pratt said, pulling his hand back onto the desktop. "He said you were taking a settlement and leaving Oakhaven for good."

"He sent five men to kill me," I said. "They had Foundation badges and submachine guns. Miller is lying on an operating table with a hole in his chest."

Pratt closed his eyes for a long moment. His jaw worked silently as he processed the news. "Miller was his nephew. Sterling would not hit his own blood."

"Sterling does not have blood," I said. "He has assets and liabilities. Right now, you are on the wrong side of that line, Gideon."

I leaned forward, placing both palms flat on the wooden desk. The headache behind my eyes was settling into a dull, thumping ache, but my sight was clear enough to read the tremor in his throat.

"Six years ago, you signed off on the cargo bay access codes the night the North District facility blew," I said. "You told the police it was a gas leak. You told the inquiry that I was the only person with access to the chemical stores."

Pratt swallowed hard. "I had a family, Vance. He had people standing outside my daughter's school in Southside. If I did not sign those entry logs, he would have buried me in the harbor."

"He is going to bury you anyway," I said, pointing at the ledger. "Your initials are on every illegal trial shipment for the last four years. When the federal investigators start looking at the Foundation's distribution network, who do you think Sterling is going to leave holding the bag?"

Pratt stared at the ledger. The paper was soaked around the edges, the dark ink of his own signature bleeding into the parchment.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the sound of the rain beating against the roof shingles.

"The storage codes for Sector Seven," I said. "The main warehouse where he keeps the unreleased batches."

Pratt shook his head quickly. "Impossible. Sector Seven is guarded by Foundation Security. They run biometric checks at the gate. You cannot walk in there with a stolen van."

"I am not walking in," I said. "You are going to take me in."

Before Pratt could reply, the heavy wooden floorboards beneath our feet vibrated. Downstairs, the front door of the fish packing shed slammed open, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots on the stairs.

Pratt’s face went completely pale. "That is not my crew."

I pulled the pistol from my waistband and stepped behind the shadow of the door frame just as the lock on the loft entrance blew inward with a loud bang.