Chapter 14 - The Final Stand at the Crossing
The shattering glass of the lookout tower window rained down like jagged diamonds across the wooden floor as the heavy-caliber sniper round embedded itself deep into the back wall.
“Down! Hit the floor!” Jax roared, shoving Sarah and Leo behind the reinforced steel base of the old wood-burning stove just as a second shot punched clean through the exterior siding of the cabin.
“They aren't waiting twenty minutes!” Mark shouted over the splintering wood. He pulled the digital flash drive from Sarah’s hand where she had safely tucked it, slipping the small device securely into his jacket pocket. “They want us eliminated now that they know we won't surrender quietly.”
“Then we don't go to the railway crossing on their terms,” Jax said, his eyes narrowing with fierce determination as he spotted a heavy iron crowbar leaning against the corner of the room. He picked it up, testing its weight in his calloused hand. “We take the old emergency supply zip-line down the western ridge. It drops straight into the freight yards behind the Oak Creek bus station.”
Sarah looked pale, but her resolve was unbreakable as she pulled Leo tight against her chest. “Let’s move, then. I’m not spending another decade running from ghosts.”
With the tactical sniper continuing to riddle the upper walls of the lookout tower with suppressing fire, Mark kicked open the heavy back access door leading to the steel cable platform. The biting mountain wind howled through the clearing, carrying the freezing scent of approaching snow.
“Leo, buddy, you’re going to ride with me on this harness,” Mark instructed gently, wrapping the heavy canvas safety strap securely around his son's small chest. “Hold onto my neck tightly and don't look down. Okay?”
“I’m not scared, Daddy, as long as you're with me,” Leo whispered bravely, clutching the old faded photograph and the heavy brass key in one hand while wrapping his other arm tightly around his father’s neck.
“Go!” Jax yelled, releasing the manual brake lever on the steel cable.
Mark and Leo launched themselves off the wooden platform, rocketing down into the dark, freezing abyss of the canyon at breakneck speed, the heavy steel cable singing a high-pitched note in the wind. Jax and Sarah followed immediately on the second harness, plunging into the darkness right behind them.
Within ninety seconds, the small group hit the braking mechanism at the bottom of the line with a bone-jarring crash, tumbling safely into the overgrown weeds behind the Oak Creek bus station freight yard.
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Without pausing, Mark led them through the chain-link fence gate directly toward Locker 44, slipping the heavy brass key into the rusted lock as the heavy rumble of an approaching cross-country bus echoed from the main terminal avenue.
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