Chapter 5 - Severing the Thread
Gabriel’s eyes snapped to Maya’s grey hooded sweater.
Without a word, he pulled his hunting knife from his boot. Maya didn't pull away; she trusted him with an innocence that carved deeper into his conscience than any blade. Gabriel ran his fingers along the thick hem of the zipper until he felt a hard, pill-shaped object stitched neatly into the bottom lining.
With a flick of his blade, he split the seam. A small, black transponder dropped into his scarred palm, its red LED blinking in rhythmic pulses.
"Son of a bitch," Dutch snarled, reaching to smash it.
"Hold on!" Gabriel barked.
"Hold on? They're zeroing in on us right now, Gabe!"
"If we smash it, they know we found it. They’ll fan out and bring a dozen rigs down on this road before we hit the county line," Gabriel said, his mind shifting into tactical survival. He looked out the passenger window. Up ahead, the desert highway crossed a dry ravine spanned by a rusty freight rail line. An endless cargo train was thundering eastward toward Nevada at forty miles an hour.
"Bones! Pull up parallel to the tracks! Ride the dirt berm!"
"You're crazy, Gabe!" Bones swung the wheel hard, the van fishtailing into the coarse gravel. Dust billowed behind them like a smoke screen.
Gabriel grabbed an empty oil jug from the back, jammed the transponder inside, sealed the cap, and wrapped it in heavy-duty duct tape. Sliding the side door open against the whipping wind, he climbed onto the running board.
The roar of the freight cars was deafening. Gabriel judged the distance, held his footing, and hurled the weighted jug with all his strength into an open hopper car speeding by. It landed with a hollow metallic thud, buried under tons of crushed gravel, speeding east.
"Turn around!" Gabriel yelled, leaping back into the cabin and slamming the door. "Head west into the canyons!"
As the van swerved back toward the shadows of the canyon, Dutch looked through binoculars at the road behind them. Three black SUVs crested the hill, hit their brakes, and turned aggressively south, chasing the train's beacon.
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"Bought us an hour," Bones muttered. "Where do we go?"
"The Iron Safehouse," Gabriel said, his voice deadly calm. "Call the chapter. Tell them the war we postponed seven years ago just started."
