Chapter 7 - The Fifth Mile Marker
The steel tracks clicked rhythmically beneath the train as the industrial skyline faded into gray harbor mist. Clara counted the concrete mile markers passing in the gloom. Four. Then the towering silhouette of the Iron River Bridge loomed ahead, spanning a turbulent black channel fifty feet below.
Just before the bridge, the fifth marker appeared, painted in faded yellow against the embankment.
Without hesitating, Clara leaped from the iron ladder into the scrub brush. She hit the embankment hard, rolling down the loose gravel into the tall weeds. Pain flared along her left shoulder as she came to a halt in the drainage ditch.
A split second later, the train roared onto the bridge. A sudden blinding flash and a concussive shockwave ripped through the morning air. The grain car she had been clinging to exploded in a fireball of shattered steel and burning wheat, derailing the train with a deafening screech of twisting metal that plunged three cars into the icy river below.
Clara lay flat in the mud, debris raining down around her. Julian hadn't just relied on police warrants; he had planted explosives on the rail line to ensure she never reached the outskirts.
A pair of heavy work boots stopped inches from her head.
“You jump fast for a high-society widow,” a rough voice remarked.
Clara looked up through a tangle of muddy hair. A man in a dark trench coat stood over her, his hands buried deep in his pockets. He was in his early forties, unshaven, with sharp, hawk-like eyes behind silver wire-rimmed glasses. It was Gabriel Cross.
“You blew up the train?” Clara managed to rasp, struggling to sit up.
“Julian’s men did that. I just tapped their radio frequencies,” Cross said, extending a gloved hand to haul her out of the muck. “Come on. The police will be here in four minutes, and Sterling’s hounds won't be far behind.”
He led her through a concealed drainage culvert into a rundown brick building that appeared to be an abandoned meatpacking facility. Inside, hidden behind a false walk-in freezer door, was an underground bunker filled with monitors, radio scanners, and filing cabinets.
“Why are you helping me?” Clara demanded, clutching her injured shoulder.
Cross walked over to a steel table and tossed down a morning edition of the newspaper with her face on it. “Because six years ago, your father gave me the evidence to put Sterling away. Before I could print it, your father died of sudden cardiac arrest, and I woke up in a cell with two kilos of contraband planted in my apartment.”
He turned to her, his gaze sharp. “You have Mark Vance’s journal, don't you?”
Clara pulled out the micro-SD card. “I have something better. Sterling’s voice giving the order.”
May you like
Cross stared at the drive, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. “Then we don't just clear your name, Clara. We dismantle the entire machine.”
Before he could take the drive, the bunker’s main breaker sparked, plunging the room into absolute darkness. Outside, the sound of a heavy diesel engine purred to a halt right above them.
