Chapter 11 - The Northern Corridor
Maya slammed her foot onto the accelerator. The tires shrieked, kicking up a shower of gravel and mud as the sedan surged forward onto the two-lane mountain highway. In the rearview mirror, the two armored black SUVs gave chase, their high-intensity halogen beams cutting through the midnight fog like twin blades.
""Turn off... the headlights,"" Arthur managed to say, his voice slurred, his head resting limply against the passenger window.
""Are you insane?"" Maya shouted, her hands gripping the leather steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. ""We're on a mountain pass with a sheer cliff on the right!""
""Night vision toggle... bottom right of the dash,"" Arthur whispered, his breath shallow. ""They have thermal sights, but the fog... the fog blinds them if we kill the light signature.""
Maya reached down with trembling fingers and hit the toggle. The dashboard darkened instantly, and the head-up display projected a pale green wireframe of the winding road onto the windshield. She slammed the external light switch. The world plunged into pitch blackness, save for the green holographic contours of the highway rushing toward them.
Behind them, the lead SUV, thrown off by their sudden disappearance into the thick bank of mountain fog, swerved erratically. Maya took a sharp, hairpin curve at sixty miles per hour, the tires screaming as the car drifted inches from the guardrail.
A sickening crunch echoed behind them. The lead SUV had miscalculated the turn in the zero-visibility fog, barreling through the rusted steel barrier and tumbling violently into the black abyss of the ravine below, exploding in a silent plume of orange flame far down the mountain.
The second SUV immediately slowed, hesitating before the deadly fog bank. Maya didn't lift her foot from the pedal, driving blindly through the winding descent until the green outline showed the flat, empty expanse of the interstate leading toward the Canadian border.
She switched the regular headlights back on as they merged onto the empty highway. The immediate pursuit was broken, but Arthur had stopped speaking entirely.
Maya glanced at his side. The satin bandage was completely soaked through with crimson. Arthur’s eyes were half-closed, his pulse fluttering erratically against his neck.
""Arthur, stay with me,"" she pleaded, reaching over to grip his cold hand. ""Do you hear me? Arthur!""
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His phone, resting in the center console, buzzed with an incoming call. The display read: GABRIEL CHEN.
Maya hit the speaker button immediately. ""Help him,"" she choked out. ""He's dying.""
