Chapter 33 - The Sawmill Ambush
The Hollow Creek Sawmill was an industrial skeleton rot of corrugated tin and waterlogged timber, looming beside a rushing river swollen with black snowmelt. A single spotlight illuminated the center of the gravel yard, where Jason Hart was tied to a rusted iron pillar, a burlap sack over his head, shivering uncontrollably.
Standing around him were four men in sterile, unmarked dark weather gear, equipped with suppressed tactical rifles. Leaning against a black SUV was a tall man in a tailored cashmere overcoat, smoking a cigar, entirely unfazed by the sub-zero chill.
Frank parked the truck fifty yards away, keeping the high beams locked onto the group.
"Stay in the back," Cole told Evelyn, who was trembling so violently her teeth clicked like dice in a cup.
Cole and I walked out into the open, flanked by Frank. In Cole’s right hand, held high between his two fingers, was the black cryptographic keycard. The golden microchip gleamed under the glaring headlights.
The man in the cashmere coat smiled, tossing his cigar into the slush. "Cole Vance. You look remarkably like your father when he was cornered in the Senate committee room. And you must be Rebecca. The young woman who bought the world’s most dangerous three-acre lot for back taxes."
"Let the boy go, Vance Senior's creditors," I called out, my voice ringing clear across the timber yard. "The card is useless without the master passcodes stored in the federal depository. You know it, and we know it."
The man chuckled softly. "The card contains the encrypted decryption hash for the vault’s emergency purge valves. We don't need the federal depository, Miss Rebecca. We just need to vent the subterranean gas pocket so our drill rigs can enter Sector Seven without causing an explosion visible from Denver."
"Let Jason walk to the truck first," Cole demanded, not flinching. "Or this card goes into the river behind me. It’s weighted with tungsten. It will hit the riverbed half a mile downstream before your men can take a single step."
The contractor held up a hand. One of the masked operatives stepped forward, cutting Jason’s ropes with a combat knife and yanking the burlap sack off his head. Jason fell to his knees, his face bruised and swollen, tears cutting clean streaks through the grime on his cheeks.
"Run, Jason!" Evelyn screamed from the truck window, unable to contain herself.
Jason stumbled forward, his legs cramping from the cold, scurrying desperately toward the headlights of Frank’s truck. The moment he crossed the halfway mark, the man in the cashmere coat tilted his head.
May you like
"Shoot the boy's knees," he ordered smoothly.
***
