And the gap stops being a gap.
"Strap's tight," Rick says. "Box nose in. Laser on you."
"Break the shot, pry the door," Gavin says, setting the nose for the slot between the two bollards—no wider than a belief. "Right bollard, half-inch clip. Left tire bounce."
"Copy," Madison says. The pipe wrench is already braced where the rope will walk the A-pillar. "I'll lift."
"Bar ready," Rick says, towel bar angled at the headliner tear.
The sniper's red dot trembles on Gavin's throat with the engine's idle and then steadies like it learned his pulse.
"Down two," Gavin says—he ducks behind the A-pillar and the red dot slides off skin to steel. You can't shoot what I hide.
"Now," Madison says.
Gavin feeds throttle. The slot comes fast and too small. He kisses the right bollard with the bumper—metal scrapes concrete, the world jumps, and the van yaws left a degree, just enough to make a door where there wasn't one. In the same breath he touches the box truck's front tire with the left bumper. Rubber pushes back; the nose squats that blessed inch.
The strap scythes across the hood lip, hungry. Madison lifts with the wrench under the rope where it meets the pillar; the rope climbs the wrench's neck, hisses along the header seam. Rick jams the towel bar up through the headliner, giving the rope steel instead of throat.
Crack—a rifle round. The windshield blossoms a fresh white coin at eye height. Something small and mean pings the cowling and rattles underfoot. Rick doesn't look down; Madison doesn't swear; Gavin doesn't blink until they're through.
"Clear of the rope," Madison says, breath clipped.
"Left slider—" Rick starts.
The box driver pins them late. The truck's corner kisses their door with a metal moan; the van skates off paint into the ferry lot proper. Behind, the strap whips the bollard and bites its own handler around the thighs. He folds like laundry.
"Restroom block right," Madison says. "Fence cut beyond."
"Ride the paint," Gavin says. He scrubs the bumper along the block's corner, shaving concrete to open inches, and drops the right tires into a maintenance cut that runs along the perimeter fence—tight as a confession, lined with scrap and a ladder laid like a bad joke.
"Red back," Rick says. The laser dot finds the hood again, crawls to the header seam, tastes.
"Break LOS," Gavin says, leaning the A-pillar into the beam until the dot paints steel instead of skin. He holds the curb tone—ssss—as the maintenance cut pinches. The hood strap hums like a tired violin.
"Metal ahead," Madison says. "High line—thin."
"Cable," Rick says. "From that plumber's ladder rack to a bollard. Chest high."
"No nylon this time," Madison adds. "This will cut."
"We give it header and roof," Gavin says. "Windows two inches. Fingers in."
They crack glass. The cable sings as they meet it. It smacks the hood lip, rides the strap's angle, and saw-saws at the header. The wiper arm snaps its plastic elbow and flings off like a gull. The cable climbs the spiderweb a finger. Madison shoves the pipe wrench under it, levering up a breath at the pillar trim. Rick braces the towel bar under the headliner so if the cable wants blood it will have an argument first.
"Straight," Gavin says, keeping the lane like it owes him money. The cable rides the roof seam, peels paint like tape, then twangs off the gutter and smacks chain-link with a pointless clang.
"Clear," Madison says, voice shaky with too much metal in it.
"End of cut is a fence," Rick says. "No egress."
"Service gate," Madison says, spotting a padlocked square in the fence to the right. "Angle will bully it."
"Then bully," Gavin says. He turns forty-five, feeds weight, and lets the bumper write physics on steel. The hinge sighs; the gate yelps; the chain pops a screw out of soggy post. They shove through into a forklift alley—pallets stacked, salt bags slumped, a stack of cones asleep.
"Slalom," Rick says.
"Curbs talk; cones gossip," Gavin says. He puts the right tire to the painted curb—ssss—and slips the van through the pallet shadows. A forklift key dangles from a ribbon. He refuses to think about stopping. Behind them, the lot begins to teach the rope crew new lessons as the pack spills in howling and nobody keeps count well.
"Laser lost," Madison says. "Then—no, reacquired—upper left—roofline of the block."
"Proper glass," Rick says. "He'll pick the ratchet."
Gavin feels it just before it happens: a purer crack, not windshield, not sheet metal—ratchet sound wrong. Something small chips off the ratchet head where it sits snug against the crossmember. The pawl skips a tooth with a dry clack. The hood breathes a finger at the header. Air finds new music under the lip.
"Hit," Madison says, eyes on the strap. "He nicked the pawl."
"Still holding," Rick says, but he doesn't mean forever.
"Ramp," Madison says. "Down to the floating dock. It's the only way out that isn't back through the choir."
"Then we take water's road," Gavin says. He noses for the ramp—boards slick, angle mean, river black and waiting. The pedal is a rumor; engine is law. He downshifts and lets gravity ask and torque answer.
The hood breathes again—two fingers now, then one as the wind slackens at the ramp lip. The strap's song climbs a note, thin and fast.
"Sight okay?" Rick asks.
"I have a slit," Gavin says. See the edges. The middle is a lie.
They drop onto the planks. The dock moves—a lateral shrug that puts the hood lip a whisper from the header. The strap ticks a high, pleading rhythm.
"Shooter?" Madison asks.
"Roofline lost in angle," Rick says. "He'll relocate."
"Good," Gavin says, meaning less bad. Ahead, the dock leads to a service yaw that turns under a ferry gantry and back to a skinny lot behind the restroom block—if they make the turn without losing sight entirely.
"Hold on the ratchet," Rick says to the universe and then to the strap. "Hold, you stubborn saint."
Behind them, shouting becomes a knot: the rope crew arguing with the pack, the box truck trying to be philosophy in a space that doesn't care, glass becoming ground.
"Turn in five," Madison says. "Plank edge drops to water. No guard."
"Copy," Gavin says. He steers with the same hands he would use to hold a fevered child still. The dock shimmies. The hood breathes again.
Another shot comes—clean, flat. Not windshield. Metal on metal. The ratchet rings like a tiny bell.
"Pawl," Rick says, voice gone thin. "That was the pawl."
The strap slips a tooth. The hood rises a thumb under wind like it is learning a bad habit.
"Madison," Gavin says.
"I've got lift," she says, pipe wrench ready at the header, but she can't promise a fight against physics plus a rifle.
"We're almost—" Rick begins.
They are not. The dock yawns under them harder as they cross a seam. A ferryman's cleat punches a new star in the spiderweb low right. The van jolts; the ratchet skips another tooth with a crisp, traitor click.
"Now," Madison says through her teeth.
"Now," Gavin echoes, and swings into the service yaw under the ferry gantry, every board speaking in knocks.
The hood breathes wide, a hand now instead of a finger. Air gets purchase. The strap's song goes very high and very thin.
"Hold," Rick tells it as if it believes in conversation.
The strap climbs one more tooth as if that is mercy.
And then it lets go.
The hood snaps up like a fist into wind, and the windshield goes to blank as the van noses deeper onto slick planks that move under them.