Chapter 8 - The Breach At Blackwood Creek
The abandoned chapel of Blackwood Creek stood surrounded by rotting hemlocks and overgrown briars.
Emma killed the headlights fifty yards before the rusted iron perimeter gate, letting the heavy armored vehicle roll silently across the muddy grass.
Lightning cracked across the Hudson Valley, illuminating the shattered stained-glass windows in brief, violent flashes of crimson and cobalt.
Emma killed the engine and grabbed her tactical vest, pulling it tight over her shoulders.
Adrian stepped out into the pouring rain, his long black coat billowing in the mountain wind as he slung the assault rifle across his chest.
The mud sucked at their boots as they moved with synchronized military precision toward the rear cemetery.
The headstones were tilted, covered in thick moss and fractured by decades of brutal northern winters.
Emma navigated the overgrown path without hesitation, her muscle memory guiding her through the darkness.
She stopped before a massive limestone monument carved with the name of Carter — 1912.
"Here," she whispered, the rain soaking her hair and plastering it against her neck.
Adrian knelt down instantly, pulling an entrenching tool from his pack, while Emma drew a tactical combat knife from her boot.
They fell upon the rocky earth at the northern base of the stone, cutting through the dense roots with frantic, brutal energy.
The earth was cold and heavy, smelling of decay and wet clay.
Three feet down, the steel tip of Adrian’s shovel struck something unyielding with a hollow, metallic clink.
"Contact," Adrian breathed, his breath frosting in the freezing autumn air.
They dug with their bare hands, clawing away the remaining mud until a heavy, olive-drab steel military ammunition case was exposed.
The case was sealed with industrial-grade wax and secured by a six-wheel brass mechanical combination lock.
Emma wiped the grime from the dials with her thumb.
Her hands, which had remained steady during the standoff with Adrian, trembled violently as she looked down at the lock.
This was her father’s last message to the world.
This was the grave that had cost her family everything.
0 — 8 — 1 — 4 — 2 — 5.
August 14th, the day Noah was born, combined with twenty-five, her age when she earned her federal gold shield.
The brass tumblers clicked into alignment with a satisfying, oily snap.
Emma threw back the locking latches and hoisted the heavy steel lid.
Inside, sealed inside three vacuum-packed waterproof bags, were three leather-bound notebooks with marbled covers.
Beside them sat a small, battery-operated emergency transponder, its tiny red diode flashing into life the instant the seal was broken.
A soft, rhythmic beep echoed from the open box.
"The beacon is live," Emma said, her voice tight with adrenaline.
"Lawson’s team just got our coordinates."
"Grab the books and move!" Adrian shouted, spinning around toward the tree line with his rifle raised to his shoulder.
Before Emma could lift the first notebook from the waterproof casing, the forest erupted into gunfire.
High-caliber rounds tore through the wet pine bark, sending wood splinters and shredded leaves showering over their heads.
Emma dropped flat against the muddy earth, tucking two of the heavy notebooks beneath her body armor.
Adrian dropped to one knee behind the limestone monument, returning fire in three-round controlled bursts.
The muzzle flashes of his weapon illuminated the dark woods in strobes of orange and white.
"Four shooters at two o'clock!" Adrian bellowed over the roar of the downpour.
"Commercial gear, night vision, suppressed carbines!"
"Lawson’s private security detail!" Emma shouted back, rolling onto her side and drawing her nine-millimeter sidearm.
A bullet ricocheted off the limestone headstone millimeters from Adrian’s ear, showering his face with sharp stone dust.
Emma saw the thermal silhouette of a shooter advancing through the briars thirty yards away.
She didn't hesitate.
She tracked the target’s center mass and squeezed the trigger twice.
The shooter collapsed into the mud with a muffled groan, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the canopy.
"They aren't trying to capture us, Carter!" Adrian yelled, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle.
"They're shooting to kill!"
"Because Lawson doesn't need us alive if he has the beacon!" Emma realized with sickening clarity.
"He wanted us to dig up the books so his mercenaries could retrieve them from our bodies!"
Two more tactical operators pushed through the rotting gate of the cemetery, laying down a suppressing hail of automatic fire that pinned them against the headstones.
The stone monument was disintegrating under the relentless barrage.
"We can't reach the SUV from the main path!" Adrian shouted, blood trickling down his cheek where a stone fragment had cut him.
"Then we don't use the path!" Emma yelled back.
She grabbed a smoke canister from her vest, pulled the pin with her teeth, and hurled it into the center of the graveyard.
Thick, white phosphorus smoke billowed instantly into the rain, creating a blinding, impenetrable thermal cloud that scrambled the attackers' night-vision scopes.
"Move to the riverbank!" Emma ordered.
Adrian fired the rest of his magazine into the smoke to keep the shooters' heads down, then leaped over the crumbling stone wall beside Emma.
They scrambled down the steep, muddy embankment toward the roaring rapids of Blackwood Creek.
The current was swollen with stormwater, churning like black glass over jagged boulders.
Behind them, shouts echoed in the woods as the surviving contractors regrouped in the smoke.
"The SUV is parked above the retaining wall!" Adrian breathed, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Give me a boost!"
Emma locked her fingers together and planted her boots in the mud.
Adrian stepped into her grip, and with a feral, coordinated heave, Emma propelled the two-hundred-pound mob boss over the five-foot stone retaining wall.
Adrian rolled onto the asphalt, came up on one knee, and eliminated a mercenary who had just rounded the rear of the armored vehicle.
He reached down over the wall, extending his hand toward Emma.
"Take my hand, Carter!"
Emma lunged upward, her fingers catching Adrian’s wrist.
He hoisted her up with terrifying strength just as a hail of bullets ripped through the mud where she had been standing seconds earlier.
They tumbled into the armored SUV, Emma slamming the reinforced door shut as heavy rounds hammered harmlessly against the ballistic glass.
Adrian vaulted into the driver's seat this time, twisting the ignition and throwing the vehicle into drive.
The tires shrieked against the wet gravel, spitting rocks and mud as the SUV blasted through the cemetery gate, crushing a downed branch beneath its heavy bumper.
Emma leaned against the passenger headrest, breathing heavily, her hands clutching the muddy, leather-bound ledgers against her chest.
Blood was dripping from Adrian’s cheek, his knuckles raw and blackened with gunsmoke.
He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard.
11:42 PM.
"Eighteen minutes, Carter," Adrian whispered, his foot pinning the accelerator to the floorboards.
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"Stewart International is twelve miles away."
"We're going to make that bastard choke on every word he ever spoke."
