Chapter 9 - Fire On The Mountain
Logan snapped the satellite phone shut, his face hardening into an expression of pure survival fury.
“We have to leave. Right now.”
“We just got here!” I cried, looking down at my sleeping baby whose body was finally warm.
“Julian’s convoy will be at this gate in less than fifteen minutes,” Logan said, kicking snow into the hearth to douse the roaring flames.
Dense gray smoke billowed up the chimney as the orange coals hissed and died into black ash.
Logan grabbed the leather ledger, shoving it into a waterproof nylon backpack along with two jugs of purified water and baby formula.
He threw me a heavy down parka from the coat rack, wrapping a wool scarf securely around the baby's blanketed bundle.
“Can the truck outrun them down the back roads?” I asked, pulling the heavy coat over my aching body.
“The truck is compromised,” Logan replied, strapping a hunting knife to his belt and grabbing a double-barreled shotgun from behind the pantry.
“They have aerial thermal scopes on their chase vehicles; they’ll spot an engine heat signature from two miles away.”
“Then how do we get off this mountain?”
“On foot, through the old mining logging trail behind the ridge.”
He kicked open the rear cabin door, revealing a narrow path buried under knee-deep snow winding steeply down into an icy gorge.
The howling mountain wind hit us like an iron fist, tearing at our clothes and threatening to rip the breath straight from my throat.
I tucked the baby deep inside my down parka, crossing my arms over my chest to seal him against the arctic gale.
Logan took the lead, using his broad shoulders to carve a trench through the heavy drifts so I could step in his footprints.
Behind us, half a mile up the winding driveway, three pairs of blinding high-beam headlights cut through the dark pine branches.
The low, guttural roar of heavy modified V8 engines echoed across the frozen valley.
Suddenly, a loud, concussive blast echoed from the cabin site, lighting the night sky in a brilliant, violent orange flash.
Julian’s men had breached the front lodge with explosive breaching charges, setting the cedar logs instantly ablaze.
Flames leaped fifty feet into the air, turning the snowy ridge into a silhouette of leaping fire and black pine needles.
“Keep moving, Joanna! Don't look back!” Logan shouted over the whistling wind, grabbing my hand to pull me down a steep embankment.
The physical trauma of giving birth less than twelve hours ago caught up with me with brutal, paralyzing ferocity.
A sharp, tearing cramp locked my hips, and my knees gave out completely against the slick icy crust.
I tumbled into a snowdrift, crying out in muffled agony while keeping my arms locked rigidly around my son.
“Joanna!” Logan was at my side in an instant, pulling me upward into his chest.
“I can't,” I sobbed, tears freezing on my eyelashes. “My body is tearing apart, Logan. I can't run through three miles of snow.”
Above us, along the high rim of the gorge, the harsh beam of a searchlight swept through the pine trees, creeping closer to our ravine.
“Search the treeline! The footprints lead into the lower ravine!” a mercenary shouted through a megaphone.
Logan looked up at the approaching light, then down at my pale, trembling face and our sleeping child.
His eyes softened with an agonizing resolve that terrified me far more than the armed men hunting us above.
“You can make it, Joanna,” Logan whispered, his voice trembling with fierce, unwavering conviction.
“At the bottom of this ravine is a disused rail line with an old track maintenance shed.”
“Inside the shed is a working diesel inspection cart with a hand crank.”
He pulled the waterproof backpack off his shoulders and strapped it securely across my chest over the baby's parka.
“What are you doing?” I panicked, grabbing the rough fabric of his oilskin jacket. “You’re coming with us!”
“They’re tracking our combined heat signature, Joanna. If we stay together, they surround us in five minutes.”
“No! You promised you wouldn't leave us again!”
“I am not leaving you, my love,” Logan said, leaning down to press his warm lips against my forehead and then against our baby's nose.
“I am leading the wolves in the opposite direction so you can reach the tracks.”
He cocked the double-barreled shotgun with a loud, metallic clack that echoed off the frozen granite walls.
“Take the rail cart three miles south to the county highway crossing. A woman named Sarah Vance will be waiting in a green sedan.”
My jaw dropped in sheer astonishment.
“Sarah? My sister? You contacted my estranged sister?”
“She knows everything, Joanna. She has your clean documents and cash.”
“Now run down the gully and don't stop until you hear the rail cart engine catch.”
Before I could scream his name, Logan turned toward the ridge, raised the shotgun into the night sky, and pulled the trigger.
The deafening blast ripped through the mountain silence, shattering tree branches and drawing the blinding searchlights straight toward his position.
“Over here, you corporate cowards!” Logan roared, sprinting laterally along the high rocks away from my hiding spot.
May you like
Gunfire erupted instantly from the ridge above, automatic rounds chewing through the pine trunks like angry hornets.
Weeping bitter, furious tears, I pushed myself out of the drift, clutching my child, and plunged down into the black ravine below.
