Chapter 59 - The Boarding Party in the Fog
"The lighthouse is half a mile out on Little Brewster Island," Vance said, hauling von Stauffen up by his collar and shoving him into the hands of two federal agents. "The water between here and the island is choked with cross-currents from the caissons! A standard boat will capsize!"
"Then we don't take a standard boat," Julian said, pointing toward the end of the pier where an old, heavy-hulled wooden harbor pilot launch—the *Martha's Pride*, built in 1958 with reinforced oak framing and a massive Detroit Diesel engine—sat moored to the heavy pilings.
"That relic?" Vance shouted over the howling gale.
"She was built by my grandfather to navigate these exact sluice currents," Julian shouted back, already sprinting down the slippery gangway. "Untie the lines!"
Within sixty seconds, the twin diesel engines of the *Martha's Pride* roared to life with a deafening, throaty rumble that shook the pier. Julian stood at the brass helm, his knuckles white as he threw the throttle forward. Vance, four tactical operators, and I braced ourselves against the mahogany cabin bulkheads as the launch tore through the foaming, turbulent water.
The bay was a maelstrom. The rising hydraulic caissons had created violent whirlpools and standing waves that battered the wooden hull, but the old vessel cleaved through the swells with brute force.
Directly ahead, Little Brewster Island rose like a jagged black fang from the churning sea, crowned by the stone tower of Boston Light. Just beyond it, the grounded submarine lay trapped in the mud, its launch silo open to the sky, a plume of venting nitrogen gas hissing violently into the rain.
"Two minutes to launch!" Vance yelled, checking the telemetry on his tablet. "If that missile clears the tube, the blast wave will level half of South Boston!"
Julian slammed the throttle into reverse as we neared the stone jetty of the island. The wooden launch groaned as its heavy rub-rails smashed against the granite boulders.
"Go!" Julian roared.
We leaped onto the slippery rocks. Vance led the way with a tactical flashlight, the beam cutting through the driving rain until it illuminated an ancient, rusted steel blast door set directly into the granite foundation of the lighthouse.
The door was secured with a massive, three-pin mechanical vault lock, encrusted with salt and eighty years of ocean brine. In the center of the door was a circular bronze depression identical in size to the disc in my pocket.
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"Eleanor!" Vance shouted. "The key!"
***
