The Little Girl With The Purple Walker And The Secret Note

CHAPTER 4: THE CONTAINER YARD BREACH

“The crane is moving on Stack Eighteen!” Tank shouted over the roar of the idling motorcycles. “They’re moving Container 4088 toward the ship’s loading berth! If that box goes into the cargo hold, she’ll be buried beneath five tiers of steel containers!”

“We breach now!” Grant commanded through his helmet intercom. “Wedge formation! Take the rail gate!”

Sixteen heavy Harley-Davidsons launched from the railroad spur, their high-output V-twin engines screaming in unison like a rolling artillery barrage.

Leading the charge was Grant Callahan on his Fat Boy, flanked by Tank on his left and Bear on his right. Spanning between the two lead motorcycles was a thirty-foot length of half-inch Grade 80 alloy steel transport chain, hooked to heavy forged tow pins on their frame sliders.

The private security gate at the western rail spur was a heavy twelve-foot chain-link barrier reinforced with steel cable.

Grant and Tank didn’t tap their brakes. They hit the gate at fifty miles an hour, the heavy alloy chain slamming into the center support posts with an explosive, deafening CRACK of shearing steel and flying rivets. The entire gate collapsed inward beneath their tires as the sixteen motorcycles roared onto the vast, concrete expanse of Terminal Four.

The private security guards stationed at the railhead panicked, scrambling behind concrete jersey barriers as the thunderous phalanx of motorcycles tore across the tarmac.

Grant led the pack through the labyrinth of stacked shipping containers—towering colorful canyons of blue, red, and yellow steel rising forty feet into the humid air. The smell of diesel exhaust, ozone, and salt brine was overwhelming.

Ahead, at Row 18, the massive gantry crane had just lowered its spreader bar over Container 4088—a white, refrigerated forty-foot container bearing the logo of Mercer Cold Logistics.

Standing on the tarmac beside the container were four private contractors armed with tactical shotguns, guarding the primary digital keypad.

Grant dropped two gears, sliding his heavy motorcycle sideways across the wet concrete, the heavy steel crash bars striking the lead contractor’s legs and knocking him onto the asphalt.

Tank and Bear dismounted in a blur of motion, deploying heavy non-lethal kinetic beanbag rounds that shattered the guards’ weapons and sent the remaining mercenaries fleeing down the narrow container alleys.

Grant leaped from his saddle, sprinted to the heavy double doors of Container 4088, and inspected the locking mechanism.

The container doors were secured by two heavy forged-steel cam-action locking rods, backed by a computerized electronic seal that was flashing crimson: SUB-ZERO REFRIGERATION CYCLE ACTIVE / INTERNAL TEMPERATURE: -18°F / AIR PURGE IN PROGRESS.

“The electronic keypad is locked with a rolling master code!” Tank yelled, trying to pry the handle with an iron crowbar.

“We don’t use the keypad!” Grant roared, unstrapping the portable oxy-acetylene cutting torch from his back harness.

Grant struck his flint lighter, a roaring blue flame erupting from the brass tip. With the surgical, high-speed precision of a master Marine armorer, Grant sliced through the two-inch solid steel locking rods, kicking the glowing metal away with his heavy leather boot.

Grant and Tank threw their full weight against the heavy insulated doors, hauling them outward.

A dense, freezing cloud of white vapor poured out of the container, smelling of sub-zero freon and ice.

Lying on the corrugated aluminum floor inside, her lips tinged with pale blue, her clothes frosted with white ice, her breath coming in shallow, shuddering gasps, was Rebecca Vance.

“Rebecca!” Grant shouted, lunging inside the freezing container.

He scooped her shivering, limp body into his massive arms, lifting her off the freezing floor and carrying her out into the warm, eighty-degree Georgia sunshine.

He laid her gently onto a pile of clean wool blankets on the tarmac. Tank wrapped her in emergency thermal space blankets, while Grant rubbed her frozen hands between his large, warm palms.

Rebecca’s eyelids fluttered open weakly. When her hazel eyes focused on Grant’s gray-streaked goatee and the crossed-hammer patch on his vest, tears broke across her frosted eyelashes.

“Grant…” she gasped, her voice hoarse and rattling with cold. “You… you got Clara’s note?”

“Clara gave it to me herself, Rebecca,” Grant said, his baritone thick with fierce, protective emotion. “She’s safe at our shop with Preacher. You’re out of the box.”

Rebecca gripped his wrist with surprising strength, her eyes wide with desperate terror. “Grant, listen to me… Julian Mercer is on the pier! He has sixty tons of stolen naval guidance systems loaded into Container 904 aboard the Atlantic Pioneer! The ship has cast off its stern lines! If that vessel clears the Savannah River channel, Mercer escapes to international waters, and he’ll have Clara and me hunted down wherever we hide!”

From the riverfront berth two hundred yards away, the deep, mournful horn of the Atlantic Pioneer blasted across the water—a massive, deafening roar signaling that the ship was getting underway!

Tank and Bear set up an emergency perimeter around Container 4088, deploying two portable halogen work lights to illuminate the narrow concrete corridor between the containers. Red brought over an oxygen bottle from his sidecar, fitting a pediatric non-rebreather mask over Rebecca’s face to assist her shallow, frost-bitten respirations.

“Her pulse is eighty-two and regular, Grant,” Red reported, checking her radial artery with experienced hands. “Core temperature is slowly rising. Her extremities are numb, but there’s no irreversible tissue necrosis. If we had arrived fifteen minutes later, her heart would have gone into ventricular fibrillation from the hypothermia.”

Rebecca leaned her head against Grant’s leather vest, whispering through the plastic oxygen mask. “Grant… Clara… did you keep her safe?”

“Clara is at the shop, Rebecca,” Grant said, his deep baritone rich with soothing warmth. “She didn’t flinch once. She walked across that crosswalk with her chin high. She’s a Callahan through and through.”