Chapter 19 - Cleansing the Soil
The St. Louis terminal site was a vast, muddy expanse of construction cranes, steel girders, and deep concrete foundations. The storm had turned the ground into a treacherous, slick swamp of red clay and pooled water.
Vincent’s black SUV tore through the chain-link gates of the site, mud spraying from the tires as Rocco’s vehicles followed closely behind.
Silas Vance stood on the high concrete platform of the main terminal foundation, his white tuxedo now stained with mud and grease, his face twisted in a manic, desperate rage. Around him, several large yellow bulldozers were idling, their headlights cutting through the driving rain.
"Vincent!" Silas roared over the sound of the wind. "You’re too late! I’m going to bury your little dream in the mud!"
Vincent stepped out of the SUV. He didn't use his cane to walk through the mud; he threw it aside, his boots sinking deep into the wet earth as he marched toward the platform, his large frame looking like an ancient, immovable monument in the storm.
"It’s over, Silas!" Vincent yelled back, his voice cutting through the thunder. "Your Windsor accounts are frozen! Your men in Detroit have already surrendered to the marshals! You have nothing left!"
"I have this!" Silas screamed, drawing a heavy chrome revolver from his jacket and aiming it directly at Vincent’s chest. "I have the final say!"
Before Silas could pull the trigger, a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the site, followed by the deafening roar of a federal helicopter descending from the storm clouds. Searchlights flared on, blinding Silas and his men, bathing the entire platform in a brilliant, inescapable white light.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!" a voice boomed from the helicopter’s loudspeaker.
Silas’s men, seeing the game was completely lost, began throwing their weapons to the ground, their hands raised in surrender.
Silas looked around, his eyes wild and desperate, realizing his empire had evaporated in a single night. He looked down at Vincent, who stood thirty feet below him in the mud, looking up at him with a quiet, profound pity.
"You should have stayed in Detroit, Silas," Vincent said softly.
With a final, desperate scream, Silas turned and ran toward the edge of the platform, intending to escape into the dark woods bordering the site. But his foot slipped on the slick, wet concrete of the unfinished foundation.
With a sickening cry, he fell, tumbling thirty feet down into the deep, water-filled concrete trench below.
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Vincent walked slowly to the edge of the trench, looking down into the dark water. Silas was alive, coughing and spluttering as he clung to a piece of rusted rebar, but his legs were broken, his white suit ruined, his power completely gone.
The storm began to recede, the heavy rain turning into a soft, clean summer drizzle.
