Chapter 4 - The Ipswich River
The rain had stopped by Friday afternoon, but the sky remained a bruised, heavy purple as Adrian’s convoy cut through the dense pine forests north of Boston.
Two armored Suburbans kicked up mud along the narrow service roads bordering the Ipswich River. Heavy timber and swollen, rushing brown water choked the banks where the current had overflowed its boundaries during the hurricane.
Adrian sat in the back of the lead vehicle, his eyes fixed on a rugged tablet displaying aerial drone feeds and GPS coordinates provided by Vance’s recovery team.
“Boss,” Vance’s voice crackled over the secure radio frequency. “We’ve got a hit about two miles up from the old mill dam. Skid marks on the shoulder. Fresh snap-off on the guardrail.”
Adrian didn't wait for the driver to park. He shoved the door open before the Suburban came to a complete stop, his boots hitting the wet mud with a heavy thud.
The riverbank was a disaster zone of snapped tree branches, floating debris, and churning, violent water. A State Department of Transportation crew was already parked fifty yards down with yellow hazard lights flashing, but Vance’s private men had secured the perimeter, keeping local authorities at a distance with quiet, heavy-handed efficiency.
Adrian walked past the snapped metal of the guardrail. Down the steep embankment, half-submerged in the swirling brown eddies of the river, was the black roof of a sedan.
His breath hitched in his throat.
For three terrifying seconds, his legs felt like lead. Every violent memory of his past—every enemy he had put in the ground, every betrayal he had survived—faded into absolute insignificance compared to the sheer, crushing weight of what lay beneath that water.
“Vance,” Adrian rasped, his voice barely audible over the roar of the river.
“Divers are already down, boss,” Vance said, jogging up beside him, his jacket soaked through. “Current is brutal. Visibility is zero. They’re working blind.”
“Get me a harness,” Adrian said, stripping off his suit jacket and throwing it onto the hood of a nearby truck.
Vance stared at him, wide-eyed. “Adrian, no. The undertow down there will snap your neck if you get caught in the branches. Let the professionals—”
“Give me the fucking harness, Vance.”
The absolute authority in Adrian’s voice left no room for argument. Within sixty seconds, a heavy nylon rescue harness was strapped across his chest, linked to a high-tension winch secured to the rear bumper of the Suburban.
Without another word, Adrian scrambled down the slick, muddy embankment, sliding the last ten feet on his heels until he hit the freezing water near the edge of the river.
The cold hit him like a physical blow, stealing the air from his lungs. He ignored it, wading into the current until the water reached his chest, fighting against the relentless push of the river toward the submerged vehicle.
Two of his private divers surfaced near the car, gasping for breath, clinging to the roof.
“Boss!” one of them yelled over the roar. “Doors are jammed from the pressure! We can’t get the driver’s side open!”
Adrian grabbed a heavy steel crowbar from a diver’s belt. He dove beneath the surface, the brown murk stinging his eyes, guided only by the tactile shape of the submerged metal chassis.
The current tried to tear him away, pinning his body against the passenger window. He jammed the flat end of the crowbar into the rubber seal of the window frame, using every ounce of his adrenaline-fueled strength to leverage it.
Crack.
The laminated glass shattered inward, the water rushing into the cabin in a violent swirl.
Adrian hauled himself upward, thrusting his head and shoulders through the broken window frame into the air pocket trapped inside the car.
“Elena!” he shouted.
The interior was pitch black. He reached blindly across the front seat, his fingers brushing against damp upholstery, loose papers, and a discarded coat.
Empty.
Panic, cold and sharp as a scalpel, pierced his chest. He swept his hand across the passenger footwell, reaching into the back.
Nothing.
The driver’s seatbelt was unbuckled. The door on the passenger side was cracked half an inch.
She had gotten out.
Before the car sank completely, or after it hit the water, she had managed to escape the sinking chassis. But in a hurricane-swollen river at two in the morning, swimming against an undertow like this was an almost impossible feat for anyone—let alone a woman ten weeks pregnant and exhausted from the emotional wreckage of the night.
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Adrian pulled himself back out of the wreckage, breaking the surface of the river, gasping for air as the current swirled around his waist.
“Vance!” he yelled, waving his arm toward the bank. “She wasn't inside! Search the tree line downstream! Expand the perimeter fifty yards on both banks!”
