Chapter 85 - Highway to Blackwood
The logging trail emptied out onto Highway 9 with a jarring crunch of the truck's suspension. I corrected the slide, the mud-caked all-terrain tires screaming as they bit into the wet asphalt of the two-lane mountain highway.
*00:29:12.*
Less than half an hour.
The truck’s speedometer climbed steadily: seventy, eighty, eighty-five miles per hour. The tall Douglas firs on either side of the road blurred into a continuous wall of dark green. Rain began to fall again, heavy, cold drops that smeared the cracked windshield and turned the road into a mirror of gray sky.
I picked up the satellite phone from the passenger seat and dialed Marcus’s encrypted frequency.
It rang three times before clicking open.
"David! Where are you?" Marcus’s voice was tense, competing with the roar of an engine.
"I’m on Highway 9, six miles out from the junction," I shouted over the wind rushing through the broken rear glass. "Emma. Is she safe?"
"She's with me," Marcus replied. "We slipped past the highway patrol blockade on the ridge road. We’re ten miles south, moving toward the federal staging post. But David—the news just broke on the emergency broadcast channels. The Blackwood chemical facility has declared an uncontained pressure breach. The local sheriff is trying to evacuate the valley, but the roads are gridlocked."
My grip tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "The safe house. Clara and the kids. Did they get out?"
A pause stretched over the radio—two seconds of silence that felt like an eternity.
"No," Marcus said, his voice dropping. "The access road to the Blackwood shelter was blocked by an overturned fuel tanker twenty minutes ago. It was staged, David. Harlan had his people block the evacuation route. Clara is trapped in the shelter with eighteen people, including six children. If that depot detonates, the toxic cloud will hit the lower valley in less than four minutes. They have nowhere to run."
"Tell Clara to seal the blast shutters on the basement," I commanded, swerving hard to avoid a fallen branch on the road. "Tell her to turn off the external ventilation. I have the manual override key. I will reach the control center."
"David, the automated terminal is inside the containment ring," Marcus warned. "If the pressure hits critical, the emergency venting will flood the entire building with sulfur dioxide. You won't have more than five minutes of breathable air once the main seals crack."
"Then I'll do it in three," I said. "Keep Emma moving south. Don't stop for anything. If you see a roadblock that isn't federal marshals, ram it."
"David, wait—"
I set the phone down on the passenger seat without hanging up. Through the speaker, I could hear Emma’s small, clear voice in the background:
"Tell him I still have the green ticket, Marcus. Tell him he has to come get it."
I looked down at the silver key resting on the dashboard beside the cracked compass housing.
*00:22:15.*
Up ahead, through the mist and the driving rain, the twin steel towers of the Blackwood Chemical Terminal rose against the gray morning sky like industrial monoliths. Plumes of white, high-pressure steam were already venting violently from the secondary safety valves on the main silos, hissing into the cold air with a sound like a dozen jet engines idling on a tarmac.
The main access gate was visible now. The chain-link fence had been smashed open, and a yellow emergency hazard light was flashing rhythmically over the entrance, painting the wet pavement in strokes of toxic amber.
Two miles. Twelve minutes.
And as I crested the final rise before the terminal entrance, I saw the black silhouette of a heavy crane positioned squarely across the main access bridge, its massive steel arm lowered to block the only path into the facility.
May you like
Standing atop the cab of the crane was a lone figure wrapped in a heavy yellow slicker, holding a flare that burned brilliant, furious crimson in the driving rain.
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