Chapter 4 - The Night at the Mill
"Bram," I whispered into the receiver. "They tracked the payphone."
"Get off the platform!" Bram ordered loudly through the speaker. "Head east toward the old flour mill near the river! I’m in a car right now—I’ll be there in twenty minutes!"
I slammed the receiver onto the hook, grabbed Sophia, and vaulted over the rusted iron railing at the rear of the platform just as the van’s side door slid open.
"There he is!" a voice yelled from the darkness.
Muffled gunshots cracked through the rain—thwack, thwack, thwack—as suppressed rounds tore through the wooden bench where we had been standing three seconds earlier. Splinters of aged pine sprayed into the air.
I didn't look back. I scooped Sophia up into my arms and sprinted full speed down the muddy embankment toward the dark silhouette of the abandoned four-story flour mill sitting on the riverbank.
My lungs burned. My dress shoes slipped in the deep mud, but adrenaline surged through my limbs like liquid fire.
We reached the heavy oak door of the mill's lower storage room. It was locked with a rusted iron chain. I didn't have time to pick it. I threw my entire body weight against the rotting wood, snapping the rusted latch and tumbling inside into pitch darkness.
I pulled the heavy door shut behind us, sliding a thick wooden beam into place across the frame.
"Sophia," I breathed, setting her down on a pile of dry burlap sacks. "Are you hurt?"
"No," she whispered back, her voice remarkably steady in the dark. "They shoot like the men in papa’s television shows. They miss a lot."
A dark, humorless laugh escaped my lips despite the terror of the moment. "You're a tough kid, Sophia."
Outside, heavy footsteps approached the oak door. Flashlight beams flickered through the cracks in the wooden wall boards.
"Mercer!" a voice called out from the rain. It was the fake driver. "Give it up! You're a businessman, not a soldier! Leave the girl and walk out with your hands up, and we'll make it quick!"
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I looked around the dark room. The old mill was filled with rusted iron gears, massive flour hoppers, and heavy steel cables hanging from the timber ceiling.
I might not have been a soldier, but I was an engineer. I knew how mechanical systems worked—and I knew how to turn an industrial wasteland into a death trap.
