Chapter 11 - The Breach
The front door splintered inward with a deafening crash, hanging loosely off its single remaining brass hinge. Through the dust and flying wood shards, two heavily armored operators surged into the cabin, their weapon flashlights cutting fierce white beams through the gloom. They moved with mechanical efficiency, their assault rifles leveled dead ahead.
"Target sighted! Secure the perimeter!" one of them barked through his radio headset.
Before the lead operator could swing his rifle toward the corner, Clara rolled off the wooden bench, kicking a heavy iron skillet across the floorboards. It slammed into the operator’s shin, throwing off his aim just enough for Mark to shove the heavy oak dining table forward, pinning the second operative against the shattered doorframe with a dull groan of compressed metal.
"Move! Now!" Clara yelled, grabbing the blinking satellite uplink transmitter in one hand and her tactical crossbow in the other.
Mark didn't hesitate. He dropped to the floor, scooped Lily into his arms—her small body shaking uncontrollably—and sprinted down the dark hallway toward the back utility room. The sound of rapid-fire submachine gun rounds chewing through the interior drywall echoed behind them like thunder, plaster dust raining down from the ceiling in thick, choking clouds.
They burst into the small utility room at the back of the cabin. The only exit was a narrow, rusted casement window overlooking the steep, overgrown ravine that dropped down toward the freezing mountain creek.
"Clara, the mines!" Mark shouted over the sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway. "You said the creek bed is rigged!"
"Only if we cross on foot!" Clara slammed her elbow against the glass of the window, shattering it completely, and cleared the jagged edges with the hilt of her knife. She hoisted herself onto the sill, holding the heavy duffel bag in one hand. "There’s an old drainage culvert fifty feet down that slope. It bypasses the entire explosive grid. Move!"
Mark pushed Lily through the window first, catching her as she dropped onto the damp earth outside, then scrambled through himself just as the first operator rounded the hallway corner, raising his weapon toward the utility room door.
Without looking back, Clara reached into her pocket, pulled out a small tactical detonator, and pressed the thumb-switch down firmly.
A fraction of a second later, a dull, concussive roar shook the earth beneath their feet. The front half of the ranger cabin erupted in a brilliant orange fireball, blowing the roof completely off the structure and sending a wave of superheated air and debris roaring across the clearing. The shockwave knocked Mark and Clara flat against the muddy slope, the sound of the explosion deafening their ears.
Mark shielded Lily with his body as falling timber and burning insulation rained down around them like burning snow. When the ringing in his ears finally subsided, he looked up the slope. The cabin was a roaring skeleton of fire, and the tactical van parked nearest the porch was engulfed in flames.
"Did we get them?" Mark coughed, wiping soot from his eyes as he pulled Lily up from the mud.
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"We bought ourselves about two minutes," Clara panted, blood trickling from a shallow cut on her forehead as she pointed down the steep ravine toward a rusted metal pipe half-hidden by blackberry bushes. "Into the culvert. Move, before the backup units arrive!"
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