Chapter 14 - An Unbroken Foundation
Maria stepped forward, sliding the six-foot hardened steel crowbar through the spokes of the seized iron valve wheel. Julian immediately grasped the top of the bar, and Martha threw her weight against the middle. Maria placed her weathered, calloused hands right beside theirs.
""On three!"" Maria commanded, her voice cutting through the hiss of steam and the distant sirens. ""One... two... three!""
With all the combined strength of three decades of survival, three people pushed. The old steel groaned, metal grinding against metal in a screech of tortured iron, and then, with a deafening clack, the valve broke free and spun wildly.
Deep beneath the pavement, the giant municipal storm gates crashed open. Millions of gallons of river water roared into the subterranean tunnels, instantly submerging the superheated thermite charges in a violent hiss of extinguished fire and billowing white vapor.
The shaking stopped. The asphalt settled. The cracking ceased.
Silence swept over the street, broken only by the sound of rain falling on the pavement.
Julian fell to his knees beside the open manhole, shouting hoarsely down into the darkness. ""Michael! Michael!""
For ten agonizing seconds, there was no response. Martha covered her mouth, her body trembling with unbearable terror. Maria closed her eyes, praying to the saints who had watched over her corner through thirty cold winters.
Then, a dripping, blackened hand reached out from the darkness of the ladder, gripping the wet asphalt.
Michael hauled himself up onto the street, his face smeared with soot and his jacket soaked in muddy canal water, coughing violently as he dragged the handcuffed arsonist behind him. He collapsed onto the sidewalk, chest heaving, his eyes finding his mother, his brother, and finally, the old woman standing over him with her apron soaked in rain.
Michael managed a faint, bloody smile. ""You always did... have the right tools for the job, Mrs. Flores.""
May you like
Martha threw her arms around her son, sobbing openly in the middle of the street as neighbors poured out from their apartment buildings, cheering through tears of relief.
From the end of the block, three state police cruisers arrived, red and blue lights painting the wet brick walls. But this time, they did not approach Maria's cart. They escorted federal agents who marched directly past them, carrying a handcuffed, disheveled Harold Vance out of an unmarked van down the block.
