Chapter 17 - The Fire on the Water
Julian unscrewed the cap of the fuel can with trembling, manic hands, splashing the amber liquid across the high-voltage distribution panels. "You think Gordon Caldwell can save you forever? Look at you! You're nothing without me! I made you!"
"Step away from the panel, Julian," Gordon said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he stepped directly between Julian and me. Despite the freezing sleet and the dark, Gordon moved with the absolute authority of a man who had built this coast with his bare hands. "You touch that breaker with an open flame and the blast will throw you forty feet into the freezing lake. You won't survive thirty seconds in that undertow."
The two hired thugs holding crowbars exchanged nervous glances. They were common dock thieves, not murderers willing to die in an industrial explosion.
"Boss," one of the thugs muttered, backing away into the shadows. "This wasn't part of the deal. We're out."
"Cowards! Get back here!" Julian shrieked, swinging the fuel can wildly.
In that split second of distraction, Gordon lunged forward. With the speed and raw power forged through decades of heavy timber work, Gordon grabbed the fuel can by the neck, wrenching it from Julian’s grip and hurling it deep into the churning black water of Lake Michigan.
Julian lunged forward with a serrated utility blade, his face twisted in a feral snarl: "I'll kill you both!"
Before Julian could close the distance, Barnaby’s golden body burst through the double doors from the upper deck like a thunderbolt, barking furiously. Behind him, the floodlights of four city police cruisers swept across the pier, blinding Julian in a blazing crossfire of white light and screaming sirens.
"Chicago Police! Drop the weapon! Hands where we can see them!"
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Julian froze, the knife trembling in his raised hand, trapped like a rat on the very pier he had tried to destroy.
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