Chapter 5 - Whispering Pines
The Catskill Mountains loomed like jagged teeth against the pre-dawn sky.
Rain had begun to fall, a steady, hammering downpour that swept across Route 28 in blinding sheets. Mark pushed his pickup truck to eighty miles an hour on the slick, winding mountain roads, the GPS coordinates from Clara’s encrypted files blinking on his dashboard.
*Project St. Jude: Abandoned 1982. Rebuilt 2020 under Vance Logistics LLC.*
His phone vibrated in the cupholder. It was Detective Miller. Mark put it on speaker.
"Vance, where the hell are you?" Miller’s voice sounded breathless, crackling over bad cellular reception. "All hell just broke loose."
"Did Arthur hit Brenda?" Mark asked coldly.
"How did you know?" Miller’s tone shifted. "Two guards walked into Brenda’s cell twenty minutes ago with a bedsheet. I intercepted them. Vance, you were right. Arthur’s payroll reaches all the way into the precinct captain’s pocket. Brenda is singing like a canary right now to save her own life."
"Where is Clara, Miller?"
"A forestry plot outside Phoenicia. It’s registered as an automated seismic research station. But Vance, listen to me: Arthur mobilized his private security team thirty minutes ago. Three black vans left the Vance corporate airfield in White Plains. They’re executing a scorched-earth protocol. They’re going to burn that facility to the ground with your wife inside."
"I'm ten miles away," Mark said, his knuckles white against the steering wheel.
"Wait for state police backup! I’ve contacted the FBI field office in Albany—"
"If I wait twenty minutes, Clara is dead!" Mark slammed the end-call button.
He veered off the paved highway onto an unmarked dirt road obscured by towering hemlocks. A rusty steel gate with a sign reading *DANGER: U.S. FORESTRY HIGH VOLTAGE* blocked the path. Mark didn't tap the brakes. He drove the reinforced steel bumper of his pickup straight through the gate, tearing the hinges apart in an explosion of sparks and twisted metal.
The truck bounced through two miles of deep mud, climbing into the dense heart of the mountain.
At the summit sat a subterranean concrete bunker. Only its flat, reinforced roof and a series of heavy ventilation shafts protruded from the soil. A security checkpoint booth stood near the entrance, illuminated by harsh floodlights.
Two armed contractors in tactical gear stepped out of the booth, signaling him to stop.
Mark didn't slow down. He ducked below the dashboard as the guard raised an automatic rifle.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
Bullets spider-webbed his windshield. Mark slammed the accelerator, ramming the guard booth. The structure crumpled, tossing one guard into the ravine while the other jumped clear into the mud.
Mark kicked his driver’s side door open, rolling out into the muck with his weapon raised. He neutralized the surviving guard with a single shot to the shoulder before the man could bring his carbine to bear.
The reinforced steel door to the underground facility was slightly ajar. Smoke was already beginning to billow from the ventilation exhaust vents.
May you like
Arthur’s men were already inside, burning the evidence.
***
