Midnight At Pier 79

Marcus Vance called just after noon, when the top-floor conference room was full of paper and the city light had gone white on the glass.

Aleandro stood at the head of the table with Vincent at his right. On the screen, a freight route map glowed with three red markers. He watched the last page of a manifest slide under Vincent’s hand.

The satellite phone rang once.

Vincent set it on the table without a word.

Aleandro answered. “Speak.”

A pause, then Marcus’s voice, slick with a smile. “You sound busy, Moretti.”

“I am.”

“I heard your fiancée has a taste for old things. Family clocks. House tours. The sort of woman who likes to look where she shouldn’t.”

Aleandro’s cheek twitched once. “You called to talk about antiques?”

“I called because you keep your doors shut and your harbors watched. That gets tiresome.”

Vincent’s eyes lifted from the papers.

Aleandro said, “You have one minute.”

Marcus chuckled. “Then let’s skip the theater. I want what moves through your ports. I want the routes, the names, the books. And I know you’re missing a few pages.”

Aleandro looked at Vincent. “You found the transfer trail?”

Vincent gave the smallest nod. Overnight sweep. Cayman shell. Zurich account. Maiden name. Weekly wire. All of it already in motion.

Aleandro said into the phone, “If you want papers, come collect them.”

A faint click of glass. Marcus shifting his grip. “Now we’re talking. When?”

“Midnight. Pier 79.”

Marcus laughed once. “You expect me to stroll into a dock in fog?”

“I expect you to be brave enough to try.”

Silence.

Then Marcus said, “No guns.”

Aleandro let the words hang. “No guns.”

“I bring two men. You bring the girl.”

Vincent’s jaw hardened.

Aleandro’s voice stayed flat. “She’ll be there.”

“And the documents?”

“In a steel case. If you’re late, they burn.”

Marcus drew a breath through his nose. “You’re bluffing.”

“I don’t bluff on paper.”

Another pause. Then the rival’s voice sharpened. “If this is a trick—”

“It is.”

Aleandro ended the call.

For a second, the room held still except for the air conditioner humming in the ceiling vent. Outside, tugs moved on the East River like dark insects.

Vincent spoke first. “We seal Pier 79, top and bottom. Quiet team on the roof line. Two cars at the service road. I want the dock plan in ten.”

“Add federal contact to the file,” Aleandro said. “Downtown holding, no leaks.”

Vincent was already reaching for the phone. “Understood.”

Aleandro turned to the window. Queens sat gray across the water, Vance Tower thin and sharp against the sky. Somewhere in that building Marcus was deciding whether greed beat caution.

Aleandro set the satellite phone face down.

“Tell the house to keep Isabella comfortable,” he said. “And keep Emma away from the study.”

Vincent nodded once.

Aleandro picked up the manifest again, but he was not reading it. He was hearing Marcus’s voice, and under it, the small click inside the grandfather clock downstairs.

The trap had started before noon.

Now it only needed a time and a place.