Chapter 22 - The River Run
The boat surged forward, cutting through the dark water of the drainage canal and shooting out into the wider channel of the Chicago River.
Above us, the searchlight from the helicopter swept across the dark surface of the river, missing our stern by barely twenty yards.
"He's running thermal imaging!" Evans yelled from the cabin, clutching Lily’s vitals monitor. "If that beam catches our engine heat, they’ll light us up from the air!"
Vincent pushed the throttle forward, steering the boat tight against the concrete retaining walls of the industrial shipping channel. Above us, massive rusted iron bridges and abandoned grain silos offered brief pockets of cover, but the open stretches were deadly.
A sudden burst of heavy-caliber fire chewed into the water behind us, sending geysers of spray into the air.
"Down!" Vincent bellowed.
Rounds tore through the fiberglass hull of the boat, shattering the rear windscreen into a million glittering fragments. I threw myself over Lily once again, whispering her name over and over like a mantra against the noise.
Vincent reached beside the helm and grabbed an olive-drab tube from an emergency locker—a shoulder-mounted anti-materiel flare launcher designed to blind heat-seeking optics.
He locked the helm straight, stepped onto the rear deck under the direct line of fire, hoisted the launcher to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
A brilliant, blinding ball of magnesium erupted from the tube, screaming skyward directly into the flight path of the pursuing chopper.
The high-intensity flare exploded right in front of the helicopter's windshield, overwhelming its infrared sensors with pure white heat. The chopper banked violently to the left to avoid the sudden blindness, its tail rotor clipping the edge of a disused railway bridge with a deafening screech of sheared metal.
The aircraft spun wildly out of control, trailing smoke as the pilot fought to keep it airborne, finally retreating toward the southern skyline before crashing into an empty rail yard two miles away.
Vincent dropped the spent tube into the churning wake, his chest heaving, his face splattered with grease and river water. He stepped back into the cabin, took the helm, and eased the throttle back down into a stealthy, low-wake idle.
We slipped beneath the shadow of a massive, disused cold-storage warehouse that jutted directly out over the water.
A hidden aquatic gate swung open as Vincent tapped a remote code, and the boat drifted inside the cavernous, pitch-black interior of the building.
May you like
The water went still.
"We're clear," Vincent whispered.
