Chapter 9 - The Shoals of Pier 42
Behind us, the high-pitched scream of the twin outboard engines grew louder, cutting through the heavy thrum of our tugboat's diesel motor. Through the rear window, I could see the black speed launch emerging from the gray fog like an arrow, its wedge-shaped bow riding high above the water as it closed the distance to two hundred yards.
"They're coming up on our port quarter!" David shouted over the engine roar. "They've got a spotlight!"
A blinding beam of high-intensity white light cut through the mist, washing over the wheelhouse, blinding us for two agonizing seconds.
"Keep her steady!" I yelled, shielding my eyes with my bruised arm. "Where's the shoal line?"
"Fifty yards ahead!" David yelled back, his hands white on the wooden wheel as he adjusted our heading by three degrees to the left. "See those two rusted iron pylons sticking out of the water? That's the boundary of the old coal dock!"
The black speed launch was fifty yards behind us now. Through the glare of the spotlight, I saw two figures in dark tactical jackets step onto the open forward deck of the launch, one of them holding a bright red flare launcher meant to signal us to halt.
"Now, David!" I screamed.
David slammed his weight against the heavy wooden wheel, spinning the Martha Jean forty-five degrees to the right, her heavy steel hull rolling dramatically to the side as she skittered past the rusted iron pylon with less than four feet of clearance.
The black launch didn't have time to react.
Driven by twin two-hundred-horsepower engines at full throttle, the lightweight fiberglass hull tried to follow our turn, but its deep draft caught the sharp, submerged iron framework of the sunk coal barge three inches below the surface.
The sound was apocalyptic.
A horrific, screeching tear of fiberglass and aluminum rang out over the water as the launch's bottom was peeled open from stem to stern. The boat lifted entirely out of the water, flipped sideways over the iron wreckage, and crashed into the river in a violent explosion of white spray, steam, and shattered composite panels.
The high-intensity spotlight vanished instantly into the dark water.
David slowed the Martha Jean's engines, bringing her heavy bow around to hover thirty yards from the wreckage. Through the mist, we could see the two contractors clinging to the floating orange survival cushions, their launch sinking rapidly into six feet of mud beneath the coal barge.
Neither of them was dead, but their boat was destroyed, their weapons sitting at the bottom of the Hudson River.
"Do we pull 'em out?" David asked, his chest heaving as he wiped cold salt spray from his eyes.
May you like
"No," I said, grabbing my briefcase from the floorboards. "Call the Coast Guard on the emergency channel. Give them their coordinates. Then take us to Albany."
David grabbed the radio handset, flicked the channel toggle to sixteen, and began broadcasting their position, while the Martha Jean turned her heavy iron bow north toward the state capital, her engine humming with a steady, unbreakable rhythm that pushed us clean out of the 4th District's reach.
