Chapter 7 - The Falling Trusses
Muzzle flashes strobed through the smoky dark as Vance’s guards opened fire on the roof trusses!
Bullets ricocheted off the iron beams with deafening PINGS, showering sparks down through the darkness.
“GO!” Adrian roared into his mic.
Marco and the perimeter security team detonated stun grenades along the perimeter doors, blinding light and concussive booms shattering the icehouse’s wooden walls!
Tactical guards poured into the main floor, exchanging heavy gunfire with Vance’s men.
High above the chaos, Adrian pulled Clara along the tilting catwalk toward the secondary support ladder.
“Can you reach the ladder?!” Adrian shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire and crackling flames below.
Clara looked at the rusted steel rungs three feet away across an open gap. The catwalk was groaning, the remaining bolts shearing off one by one under their combined weight.
“I can make it!” Clara shouted back.
She didn't hesitate. She launched herself across the gap, catching the cool steel rungs of the ladder, securing her grip instantly with the muscle memory her father had taught her as a child.
She turned back, reaching her hand out toward Adrian. “Jump!”
Adrian leaped across the gap just as the section of catwalk they had been standing on detached completely, crashing down onto the burning steel drum below in a shower of brilliant orange sparks!
They slid down the ladder, hitting the lower sub-floor corridor just behind the main hoist machinery.
Through the dense smoke, Clara saw Everett Vance sprinting toward the rear dock exit, clutching his leather briefcase tightly against his chest!
“He’s escaping with the master drive!” Clara cried.
Adrian broke into a sprint, weaving through the heavy iron machinery. He burst out onto the elevated loading dock just as Vance reached a sleek black speedboat idling in the dark river water below!
“Vance!” Adrian’s voice thundered across the misty river.
Everett Vance froze on the edge of the wooden dock, turning slowly with a silver pistol in his hand. His aristocratic face was twisted in disbelief and rage as he stared at Adrian Moretti—the man who was supposed to be crushed under three tons of brass six hours ago.
“You... you should be dead,” Vance rasped, his voice trembling as he raised his gun. “The chandelier... it was a mathematical certainty!”
“Your math was wrong, Everett,” Adrian said calmly, stepping forward into the moonlight, his weapon aimed steadily at Vance’s chest. “Because you didn't factor in Arthur Hayes’s daughter.”
Vance’s eyes flicked to Clara, who stepped out onto the dock beside Adrian, holding her father’s brass flashlight like a weapon.
“Ah,” Vance sneered, a ugly smile touching his lips. “The waitress. Your father was a stubborn fool, girl. He refused ten thousand dollars in cash back in ninety-eight just to fix a safety report. He died broke, and now you’re going to die in a dark alley for the same foolish pride.”
Vance pulled the trigger!
CLICK.
Nothing happened.
Vance stared at his weapon in horror.
Clara stepped forward, raising her father’s heavy flashlight, pointing its bright beam directly at the mechanical hoist cable suspended above Vance’s head.
“My father taught me three things, Mr. Vance,” Clara said, her voice ringing out clear and cold over the dark water. “First, always check your secondary safety. Second, never trust a cheap firing pin. And third...”
She reached out and pulled the manual emergency release lever on the dock wall beside her.
“...always know which cable is under tension.”
The heavy steel cargo hook hanging above the dock dropped four feet with a deafening metallic CLANG, slamming directly into the wooden dock floor inches from Vance’s feet!
The violent impact shattered the rotten dock boards.
May you like
Everett Vance screamed as the floor beneath him gave way completely, sending him tumbling down into the cold, dark, swirling waters of the Chicago River!
The heavy leather briefcase flew from his grip, landing with a loud THUD squarely at Clara’s feet.
