Chapter 10 - In the Rafters
Julian froze, his eyes instinctively flicking upward toward the rusted steel superstructure of the mill.
High above, perched on an iron catwalk fifty feet in the air, a shadow moved. It wasn't a dog. It was a massive, scarred timber wolf that had made its den in the abandoned rafters, drawn out by the gunfire and the smell of blood. But more importantly, standing directly behind the beast on the rusted catwalk was a silhouette wrapped in an old military poncho, holding a heavy iron spud wrench.
""Who the hell is that?"" Julian barked, raising his pistol toward the ceiling.
Before the guards could pivot their weapons upward, the figure on the catwalk slammed the iron wrench down onto the emergency lever of the sawdust silo hopper.
A deafening groan of tortured metal tore through the mill.
The entire underside of the seventy-ton steel funnel gave way. A tidal wave of decades-old compacted sawdust, rotted pine chips, and heavy steel grinding discs plummeted downward like an avalanche, landing directly between Julian’s men and the cast-iron planer where Leo’s family hid.
The impact shook the concrete foundations. A blinding, choking cloud of yellow dust instantly enveloped the sorting floor, reducing visibility to zero.
Coughing. Screams. Blind gunfire echoing wildly into the timber walls.
Leo didn't hesitate. He grabbed Mateo with his left arm and pulled Elena up by her belt, lunging through the impenetrable yellow haze. ""Move to the spillway!"" he shouted over the chaos.
Through the fog of sawdust, a rough, calloused hand grabbed Leo’s jacket collar, wrenching him violently sideways into a narrow brick maintenance alcove.
Leo raised the tire iron to strike, but the shadowy figure caught his wrist with terrifying strength.
""Save your swing for the suits, Santos,"" a gravelly, female voice snarled.
The dust cleared enough for Leo to see her face. She was in her late forties, scarred, wearing greasy canvas coveralls beneath the military poncho, her greying hair tied back with paracord. Around her neck hung a pair of heavy brass dog tags.
Elena gasped. ""Martha?""
""Hello, kid,"" the woman said, spitting tobacco juice onto the concrete. ""Your old man hired me fifteen years ago to make sure nobody ever raided this mill. Now shut up and get through the drainage pipe before those corporate bastards start tossing thermite.""
""Martha was my father's head of private security,"" Elena whispered to Leo. ""Before she disappeared.""
""I didn't disappear,"" Martha grunted, kicking open a rusted iron grate in the floor that revealed the roaring dark water of the river spillway below. ""I retired. But Arthur still had my pager.""
From the sawdust cloud behind them, Julian’s furious voice roared: ""Kill everyone! Burn this entire building to the ground!""
Martha unslung a short-barreled pump shotgun from her back and racked the slide with a clean, brutal clack.
""Down the pipe,"" she ordered Leo. ""There's an inflatable raft anchored at the mouth of the weir. Take it downriver to Highway 9. I'll buy you three minutes.""
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""Martha, you can't fight all of them alone!"" Elena cried.
""I don't have to fight them all, kid,"" Martha said, grinning with stained teeth as the first guard emerged from the dust cloud. ""I just have to blow the support pilings.""
