Chapter 13 - THE SUBTERRANEAN SECRET
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I didn't wait for office hours to end. I immediately dialed Marcus Vance’s direct line, my fingers tapping anxiously against the wooden desk as the phone rang twice before he picked up.
“Claire? Everything okay at the museum?” Marcus asked, his voice brisk and professional.
“Marcus, drop whatever you’re doing and get over to the university archives right now,” I said, my voice dropping into an urgent, breathless whisper. “I just found something in the historical port authority manifests that changes everything about why Daniel and Viktor Sterling targeted Unit 12B.”
Twenty minutes later, Marcus burst into my office, shrugging off his wet trench coat and tossing his briefcase onto the nearest chair.
“All right, you sounded like you found the Dead Sea Scrolls on the phone. What’s going on?” Marcus asked, pulling up a chair beside my drafting table.
I pointed a gloved finger down at the 1923 architectural survey map spread across the glass surface.
“Look at this annotation, Marcus,” I said, tracing the faded copperplate ink with my stylus. “This isn't just an ordinary co-op building. The entire residential tower was constructed over the foundation of an old 1920s Prohibition-era bootlegging warehouse. There’s a subterranean service tunnel running directly from the basement of our building straight to the old Hudson River bulkhead.”
Marcus leaned in closely, adjusting his glasses as he studied the architectural map. His eyes widened as the geographical implications clicked into place in his sharp, legalistic mind.
“Wait a minute,” Marcus murmured, tracing the red ink line across the map. “The basement of your co-op building... that’s right beneath the primary utility and storage level. If this tunnel is still structurally intact, it bypasses the street-level security cameras, the doorman, and the police entirely.”
“Exactly,” I said, looking up at him with wide, serious eyes. “When Viktor Sterling’s freight handlers in New Jersey were trying to revive their smuggling operations last week, they weren't just looking for random warehouse space. They were trying to reclaim an operational maritime transit node that has been buried beneath our building for a hundred years.”
“And Daniel’s fraudulent title transfer wasn't just about laundering money through residential mortgages,” Marcus realized, his jaw tightening as the full scope of the syndicate’s master plan crystallized. “They needed total, unhindered legal control over Unit 12B and the master basement storage access points so they could unlock the subterranean bulkhead without raising suspicion from the co-op board.”
“Precisely,” I nodded. “Which means the syndicate isn't dead. They’ve just gone underground—literally.”
Marcus stood up from his chair, pacing back and forth across the archival office floor, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets.
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“If this tunnel is still active, the NYPD and the feds need to know about it immediately before the New Jersey faction moves their next shipment through the city,” Marcus said decisively. “We need to inspect the basement sub-level of your building tonight.”
“Tonight,” I agreed, pulling off my archival gloves and reaching for my leather field jacket. “Let’s go see what’s hiding underneath my living room floor.”
