Chapter 13 - The Drainage Creek
The iron rungs were slick with condensation and freezing mud, biting into the palms of their hands as they descended the vertical shaft. The air grew damp and foul, smelling of stagnant water and rotting leaves. Above them, muffled by tons of concrete and earth, another heavy explosion rumbled through the ground, sending a cascade of loose dirt and small stones tumbling down the pipe around them.
"Hurry!" Caleb shouted upward, pushing Maggie ahead of him as the pipe leveled out into a horizontal corrugated concrete drainage culvert.
The water at the bottom of the culvert was knee-deep, ice-cold, and moving fast from the melting snow above. They splashed forward through the dark, their boots sinking deep into the muddy silt. Maggie stumbled once, her face splashing into the freezing water, but Caleb grabbed her by the arm and hauled her upright before the current could pull her down.
"I've got you! Keep moving!" Caleb yelled over the roar of rushing water echoing through the concrete tube.
Ahead of them, a faint, pale circle of gray light pierced the darkness—the open end of the culvert leading out into the ravine three miles away from Site Delta-4.
They scrambled toward the light, their lungs burning with the damp, freezing air. One by one, they burst out of the concrete pipe, tumbling down a steep mud embankment into a shallow, rushing creek bed surrounded by dense thickets of bare-branched briars and deep snowdrifts.
Caleb pulled Maggie up onto the snowy bank, both of them gasping for breath, shivering violently as the freezing wind whipped across the open fields. Arthur emerged last, crawling out of the culvert with slow, deliberate movements. He pulled himself up onto the bank, water dripping from the hem of his orange quilted jacket, his breath pluming white in the freezing night air.
"We made it," Maggie whispered, wrapping her arms around herself, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. "We actually made it out."
"We're not out yet," Arthur said, pointing up toward the ridge above the creek bed.
Parked on the dirt access road overlooking the ravine was a single black suburban, its headlights off, its engine idling silently in the dark. The silhouette of Lawrence stood beside the driver's door, binoculars raised to his eyes, scanning the creek bed.
Caleb cursed under his breath, reaching instinctively for a weapon he didn't have. "How did he know we'd come out here?"
"Because it's the only exit left," Arthur said calmly. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the leather-bound ledger, untouched and dry inside a heavy plastic evidence bag he must have slipped off one of the filing cabinet shelves before they left the vault.
Lawrence lowered the binoculars. He reached into his coat, pulled out a satellite phone, and raised it to his ear.
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"They're in the creek bed," Lawrence’s amplified voice carried clearly across the freezing ravine. "Cut off the bridge on Route 42. They aren't leaving this county alive."
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