The frosted wired-glass door of the Pier 14 Embarkation Shed swung open with a rattling shudder.
Julian stepped across the raised brass sill, leaving the freezing Atlantic gale behind him. The air inside the cavernous timber building was damp and still, smelling of creosote pilings, engine diesel, and fifty years of wet hemp rope. High overhead, exposed Douglas fir rafters supported a corrugated-steel roof that rattled under the driving sleet.
Mac Cole entered behind him, his heavy boots echoing on the timber planks. Lin Mei carried the bulk tape degausser slung across her chest like a heavy radio pack, while Dr. Corvo walked with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his dark wool coat.
In the center of the loading floor stood the machine that ruled Pier 14: the Toledo Wharfinger’s Platform Scale.
It was a massive piece of late-nineteenth-century industrial machinery. The weighing platform was six feet square, surfaced with grease-darkened oak checkerplate and framed by heavy cast-iron angle irons.
Rising from the back of the platform was an eight-foot circular dial framed in polished brass. Inside the glass face, a long black iron pointer rested against a porcelain ring marked with crisp black numerals up to five hundred pounds.
