Chapter 11 - The River of Ash
Leo didn't waste the seconds Martha had bought with her life. He dropped through the maintenance hole, landing up to his waist in the icy, churning black water of the mill's subterranean sluice. The cold hit his chest like a hammer, stealing his breath.
""Elena, jump!"" he yelled over the deafening roar of the weir.
Elena slid through the opening, gripping the rusted rim until Leo caught her by the waist, absorbing her weight and setting her feet onto the submerged concrete ledge. He reached up one more time as Martha lowered Mateo down. The boy was shivering violently, his small arms locked in a stranglehold around Leo’s neck.
""Hold on to me, buddy,"" Leo whispered, his teeth chattering. ""Hold on tight.""
Above them, the deafening blast of Martha’s shotgun ripped through the floorboards, followed immediately by rapid bursts of automatic fire and Julian’s muffled curses. Then came the unmistakable clinking of metal canisters rolling across the timber floor.
""Thermite!"" Martha screamed from above. ""Go!""
Leo lunged down the narrow concrete tunnel, dragging Elena by the arm. The current in the sluice pulled at their legs, nearly sweeping Elena off her feet, but Leo held fast, his boots finding purchase on the slick, moss-covered concrete.
Twenty yards ahead, the tunnel opened into daylight—a roaring cataract of grey water where the old timber mill expelled its wastewater into Blackwood Creek. Tied securely to an iron ring bolt in the stone wall sat an orange military-grade Zodiac raft, bouncing violently against the rapids.
Behind them, a blinding orange light illuminated the entire length of the tunnel. The heat was instantaneous, blistering the skin on the back of Leo's neck as thermite ignited the dry timber rafters above. Secondary explosions tore through the mill’s foundation; the groan of collapsing steel girders sounded like dying leviathans.
Leo tossed Mateo into the center of the raft and shoved Elena aboard. ""Get down! Stay in the middle!""
He wrenched his pocketknife across the hemp mooring line, slicing it through in one desperate swipe, and threw his body over the rubber pontoon just as the mill above collapsed in a catastrophic cascade of burning beams, fire, and falling concrete.
The Zodiac hit the main current of the river, shooting forward like an arrow into the white-water rapids.
Looking back through the spray, Leo watched the entire eastern wing of the Blackwood Mill tumble into the gorge, a towering pillar of black smoke and roaring flames rising into the overcast sky.
Mateo lifted his head from Elena’s lap, coughing from the smoke. He reached into his little pocket once more and pulled out a damp, crumpled strip of paper that Martha had shoved into his sweater as she lowered him down.
Elena took it with trembling hands, unfolding the parchment. It wasn't a note.
May you like
It was a bank routing number, followed by an address in downtown Boston: The State Vault, Box 88.
And beneath it, written in Martha's sharp scrawl: Julian didn't forge the court order. Elena's brother is still alive.
