Chapter 14 - The Iron Siding
The manual launch charges detonated beneath the pod with a concussive roar.
The vehicle shot forward like a bullet launched from a rifle barrel, pinning Clara back into the cushioned pilot seat. The sudden surge of raw acceleration made her vision gray out at the edges. Behind them, the blast of the launch threw Victor’s mercenaries across the shattered vault floor, crushing two against the stone pillars.
The pod hurtled through the subterranean darkness at nearly two hundred miles per hour, completely blind without computer guidance. Sparks scraped along the magnetic guide rails, illuminating the raw granite walls in violent, strobe-like flashes.
Clara clutched Alexander against her chest, bracing herself as the pod rattled violently around tight subterranean curves. Her mind counted the seconds.
Thirty... forty... fifty...
Two miles north. The abandoned rail siding was near the river gorge.
Suddenly, the blackness of the tunnel gave way to moonlight. The pod burst out of the mountainside into the freezing autumn air, skidding along an overgrown, rusted spur line bordered by dense pine forests.
The friction brakes screeched, metal groaning against metal, throwing plumes of white-hot embers into the night sky until the pod finally ground to a shuddering halt fifty yards from the edge of the rushing river.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the hiss of cooling metal and the distant rush of water.
Clara manually cranked the release lever on the pod door. She tumbled out onto the damp earth, falling to her knees in the wet grass. Cold mountain air filled her burning lungs. Inside the carrier, Alexander gave a soft, sleepy whimper, completely unharmed.
""We made it,"" she sobbed, burying her face against the baby’s swaddling. ""We're out.""
Her celebration was cut short by the low, heavy thrum of twin turbine rotors beating the air.
Clara looked up.
May you like
Sweeping low over the treetops, a sleek black attack helicopter descended into the clearing, its blinding searchlight pinning Clara and her child against the wet earth.
The markings on the tail bore the silver insignia of Victor Blackwood’s private fleet.
