Chapter 103 - The Echoes in the Gorge
The crack of the high-caliber rifle answered Vance almost instantaneously. A chunk of granite the size of an apple exploded off the rock shelf, showering my hair with burning gravel. Vance hit the wet dirt behind the iron winch, rolling onto his side to lay down suppressing fire with steady, disciplined pops from his nine-millimeter.
"Now, Katherine! Move!" he bellowed.
I didn't think about the four-story drop into the black water below. I didn't think about the frost turning the slate into grease under my soles. I threw myself forward on hands and knees, sliding through the slush until my ribs slammed into the lip of the retaining wall.
My fingers closed over the cold, notched brass of the key just as another shot gouged a trench four inches from my wrist.
"Julian, give me your hand!" I screamed.
His face was upturned, gray with exhaustion, rain and sweat streaking the deep wrinkles around his eyes. "The river... Katherine, the current will drag you down..."
"Shut up and take my hand!"
I dropped the key into the zippered breast pocket of my parka, locked my fingers into the collar of his heavy wool coat, and pulled with everything left in my spine. The strain was agonizing; the wet wool stretched, threatening to rip beneath my grip, and Julian’s heavy boots dragged against the slime of the concrete wall.
From the ridge above, Melissa shrieked in absolute fury: "Bradley, shoot her! Shoot the bitch! She’s taking it!"
"I can't get a clear line, she's below the parapet!" Bradley’s voice carried through the pines, tight with panic. "Melissa, the marshals are already sweeping the south road! We have five minutes before the perimeter collapses!"
"I don't care about the perimeter!" she screamed back, the pitch of her voice climbing into madness. "I spent my whole life being treated like a second-class brat while she got the piano lessons, the college tuition, and the summer house! I am Arthur Van Der Bilt's firstborn daughter! This valley belongs to my sons!"
With a ragged, gut-wrenching heave, I dragged Julian over the lip of the concrete. He collapsed onto the granite slab like an empty sack, gasping for air, clutching his dislocated shoulder against his ribs.
A bullet ricocheted off the steel rail above our heads with a high, mournful scream. Vance fired three more rounds into the trees, forcing Bradley to duck behind the birch.
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"The tunnel under the weir!" Julian wheezed, his mouth inches from the stone, spitting blood from a bitten lip. "The sluice maintenance door... Katherine... it’s thirty feet behind the powerhouse. Arthur kept the auxiliary generator keys in the masonry!"
"Vance!" I called out through the mist. "The sluice tunnel! We have to move!"
