Chapter 10 - The Overpass Trap
The muzzle flashes from the elevated overpass cut through the dark night sky like blinding white lightning.
"Down!" Elena screamed, tackling Clara sideways into the deep mud beneath the corrugated shipping container just as a volley of heavy rounds hammered into the chain-link fence behind them, showering the asphalt with hot metallic fragments.
Williams dove behind a concrete drainage culvert, returning rapid, controlled shots toward the overpass van, forcing the shooters to momentarily duck behind their armored vehicle doors.
"Elena, we're pinned in a crossfire!" Williams yelled over the roar of passing semi-trucks on the highway above. "We need an armored extraction right now, or we're not making it out of this drainage basin!"
"There is no extraction!" Clara sobbed, clutching her bruised arm as she pressed herself flat against the wet earth. She pointed frantically at the open black travel bag lying mere feet away in the mud. "They don't care about the agents, they don't care about Miller—they just want that book incinerated before the Senate oversight committee opens tomorrow morning!"
Elena wiped a streak of mud and rainwater from her forehead, her tactical mind working at a feverish pace. She looked from the black travel bag to the heavy-duty drainage pipe running beneath the service road. The pipe was large enough for a person to crawl through, leading down toward the municipal riverbed half a mile away.
"Clara, listen to me," Elena said, grabbing the woman firmly by the shoulders. "You're going to crawl into that drainage pipe right now. It leads to the river. Follow it straight until you hit the treeline, then flag down the first state cruiser you see."
"What about the ledger?" Clara asked, her eyes wide with terror. "You can't leave it here!"
"I'm not leaving it," Elena said grimly. She reached out, grabbed the leather-bound journal and the solid-state hard drive from the mud, and shoved them securely inside the waterproof inner pocket of her black jacket. "Go! Now!"
Clara didn't hesitate a second longer. She scrambled into the dark, foul-smelling mouth of the concrete drainage pipe, disappearing into the shadows.
On the service road above, the heavy boots of the approaching tactical team crunched closer. The leader's voice echoed down into the basin. "Vance! You can't outrun a federal directive. Hand over the journal and walk away, and we let your partner live!"
Williams reloaded his service pistol with a sharp metallic click, peering around the concrete culvert. "Don't listen to them, Elena. They don't leave witnesses."
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Elena pulled her breath into her lungs, steadying her nerves as she drew her weapon and rose from the mud, stepping directly into the path of the advancing operatives.
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