Chapter 19: The Outlaw Track
Chapter 19: The Outlaw Track
The sirens didn't sound like police cruisers; they sounded like war. The heavy, thudding beat of twin-engine Blackhawk helicopters shattered the night air, their powerful searchlights cutting through the Outer Banks fog like the fingers of a vengeful god.
"Domestic terrorists?" Sarah’s voice rose to a terrified shriek, her hands shaking so violently she almost dropped Leo. "We didn't kill any guards! We didn't do anything!"
"Arthur Vance just played his final card," Marcus said, his voice deadly calm as he grabbed the canvas bag and threw it into the back of a battered, rusted Jeep Cherokee parked inside an abandoned fishing shack nearby—his backup vehicle. "He didn't just buy the local police; he owns the regional director of the FBI. They don't want to arrest us, Sarah. They have a 'shoot-to-kill' warrant. If they kill us, the drive is recovered, the ledger is destroyed, and the story dies with us."
"We need to get to Washington," Elena said, jumping into the passenger seat as Marcus slammed the Jeep into gear, the tires tearing through the sand and onto a dark, unpaved backroad. "We need to find someone independent. A federal judge, a senator... someone Arthur can't buy."
"There is no one in Washington who can't be bought by eighty million dollars, Elena," Marcus said, his eyes glued to the dark road as he drove without headlights, relying on his military night-vision goggles. "Except one person. A retired federal prosecutor named Evelyn Cross. She spent twenty years trying to put Arthur’s father in prison. She lives in a fortified cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. If we can reach her, she has the clearing codes to bypass the FBI’s corrupt chain of command."
"That’s a six-hour drive through three states," Elena said, looking out the back window. Far behind them, the red and blue lights of a massive police blockade were already forming on the main bridge leading off the islands. "The bridges are blocked. How do we get across the sound?"
"We don't use the bridge," Marcus said, turning the Jeep violently down a steep embankment toward a dark, marshy swamp. "We use the old logging ferry. It’s manual, abandoned since the seventies, but it’s still chained to the banks. If we can hook the Jeep’s winch to the cable, we can pull ourselves across the water in the dark."
Ten minutes later, the Jeep sat on the rusted iron deck of a small, creaking cable ferry, hidden beneath a canopy of cypress trees. Marcus stood at the bow, the electric winch of the Jeep groaning as it slowly pulled the heavy ferry across the black, stagnant waters of the swamp.
Elena sat in the back with Sarah, who was sweating profusely, her breath shallow. "Sarah... hang in there. We’re almost out of the state."
"Elena..." Sarah whispered, looking down at a sleeping Leo. "If... if something happens to me... you take him. You change his name. You don't let them find him."
"Nothing is going to happen to you, Sarah! Stop talking like that!" Elena snapped, her own tears blurring her vision.
Suddenly, a massive spotlight illuminated the swamp, turning the dark water into a sheet of silver.
From the treeline behind them, an armored tactical vehicle tore through the brush, its roof-mounted machine gun aiming directly at the ferry. A man stepped out of the passenger side, holding a megaphone.
It wasn't an FBI agent. It was David Vance.
He had escaped. Or rather, his father’s men had extracted him from the county jail before the FBI warrant was even issued. His face was wrapped in bloody medical bandages, his orange jumpsuit replaced by a black tactical vest. He looked like a demon resurrected from the grave.
"Elena!!" David’s voice screamed through the megaphone, distorted and maddened by pain and hatred. "You thought you could lock me in a cage?! You thought you could take my son?! I am a Vance! We own the ground you stand on! Turn the boat around, or I will personally rip this baby from your cold, dead fingers!"
Marcus didn't hesitate. He pulled his shotgun, aiming at the tactical vehicle's tires, and fired twice. BOOM! BOOM!
The heavy buckshot shattered the vehicle's front headlights, plunging them back into partial darkness.
"Elena! Take the wheel of the Jeep!" Marcus roared, running to the ferry's steel cable lock. "The winch is almost at the opposite bank! When I cut the main cable, the ferry will swing downcurrent! Drive the Jeep off the ramp the second we hit land!"
David’s men opened fire. A hail of high-caliber bullets ripped through the rusted iron walls of the ferry, sending sparks flying in every direction. One bullet clipped Marcus’s mechanical leg brace, sending him crashing to the deck with a cry of pain.
"Marcus!" Elena screamed, scrambling over the front seat into the driver's position.
David was running down the logging dock, jumping onto the ferry’s guide cable, sliding down toward the moving boat like a maniac, a heavy combat knife clamped between his teeth.
Elena slammed the Jeep into reverse, then shifted violently into drive, flooring the accelerator. The Jeep slammed into the ferry’s front safety gate, shattering the rusted chain just as the boat bumped against the muddy opposite bank.
David dropped from the cable onto the hood of the Jeep with a terrifying thud, his bandaged face pressed against the windshield, his knife raised to smash through the glass.
"Die!!" David screamed, his eyes wide with psychotic fury.
Elena looked him dead in the eye. "Go to hell, David."
She slammed her foot on the brakes, then accelerated instantly. The sudden jolt threw David off balance. Elena spun the steering wheel, and the heavy chassis of the Jeep clipped David, launching him sideways off the hood into the dark, swirling, alligator-infested waters of the swamp.
May you like
The Jeep roared up the muddy bank, tearing onto the mountain highway as the sound of David’s screams faded into the dark water behind them.
But as Elena checked her rearview mirror, she saw the lights of three more tactical vehicles emerging from the main highway ahead, cutting off their escape route to the mountains. They were completely surrounded.
