Chapter 12 - THE MAN IN THE TUNNEL
Mercer wasn't alone in the tunnel.
We discovered that when the first shot hit the brick six inches from Dominic's head.
“Down!”
Dominic pulled me behind an old support wall.
Another shot cracked through the passage.
I hated guns.
Electricity made sense.
Guns were just explosions people carried.
Dominic drew his weapon.
I grabbed his wrist.
“No blind shooting.”
He stared at me as if nobody had ever given him that instruction before.
Probably nobody had.
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Give me the recorder.”
Mercer.
Dominic leaned toward the corner.
“You've spent four years trying to turn my brain into a weapon against me.”
Mercer laughed.
“It worked.”
“Not tonight.”
Silence.
Then footsteps.
I looked upward.
Old conduit ran along the ceiling.
One circuit still had power.
A work light hung twenty feet behind Mercer.
I whispered, “Can you keep him talking?”
Dominic looked at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Being an electrician.”
I opened an ancient junction box.
Mercer's voice echoed again.
“Vincent was right about you. Too sentimental. Anthony was the same.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
I touched two conductors together.
The work light behind Mercer exploded on.
He turned instinctively.
Dominic moved.
Three seconds later, Mercer was on the ground, weapon kicked away.
Federal agents entered from the opposite tunnel entrance.
Apparently Shaw had been closer than Mercer realized.
They handcuffed him.
He looked at me.
“You think this makes you safe?”
“No.”
I wiped dust from my hands.
“I think the handcuffs help.”
Dominic almost smiled.
Then Mercer laughed.
“Vincent is already gone.”
Shaw stepped forward.
“Where?”
Mercer said nothing.
But he didn't have to.
His phone was in his pocket.
One encrypted message had arrived minutes earlier.
AIRFIELD READY.
Dominic knew the private airport.
Vincent was leaving Chicago.
Federal agents moved.
So did Dominic.
I stopped him.
“Let them.”
“He killed Anthony.”
“I know.”
“He killed your father.”
“I know.”
“And you want me to stand here?”
“Yes.”
His eyes burned.
“Why?”
“Because the man they built for four years would chase him.”
Dominic went still.
I continued.
“The man you say you want to become lets Vincent run straight into handcuffs.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he put his gun on the workbench.
Forty-one minutes later, Shaw received the call.
Vincent Moretti had been arrested beside a private jet with two fake passports, six million dollars in negotiable instruments, and enough evidence in his laptop to bury half his operation.
Dominic closed his eyes.
It was over.
Almost.
Mercer was being led away when he turned.
“You still don't know why Hall agreed.”
Dominic looked at him.
Mercer smiled.
“Ask who paid for his daughter's surgery.”
Then he revealed the final missing piece.
Dr. Hall had initially tried to stop the scheme.
May you like
Vincent had found the one thing he could use to control him.
His dying child.
