Chapter 4 - The Lake Marion Crossing
The air inside the escape tunnel was cold and stagnant, smelling of old earth and damp stone. Ethan led the way, his flashlight beam cutting through the fog of their condensed breath. Lily had fallen quiet, exhaustion finally catching up to her as she rested her head against Ethan’s shoulder.
Behind them, the faint muffled sounds of breaching charges echoed through the concrete walls. Daniel’s men were blowing open the cellar doors.
"They're inside the tunnel network," Victoria noted, checking the tactical watch on her wrist. "We have maybe four minutes before they reach the exit."
"That's four minutes more than we need," Ethan said.
They reached the end of the tunnel, where a heavy wooden hatch opened into the floor of the boathouse. Ethan pushed the hatch upward, scanning the interior of the timber structure. Sunlight had fully faded, replaced by the deep indigo of night. The calm surface of Lake Marion reflected the distant lights of the main house up on the hill.
Tied to the slip was a sleek, thirty-foot mahogany motor launch—a vintage vessel Ethan’s father had restored decades ago.
"Get in," Ethan ordered, setting Lily down inside the covered cabin area of the boat.
Victoria climbed aboard, her red evening gown now torn at the hem and stained with tunnel dust. "Does this thing even run? It looks like a museum piece."
"My father built things to last," Ethan said, stepping up to the controls. He reached beneath the console, pulled two wires from the ignition harness, and sparked them together.
The twin V8 engines roared to life with a deep, throating growl that rattled the wooden beams of the boathouse.
At that moment, the hatch floor burst open. Two mercenaries in black gear scrambled into the boathouse, raising their rifles.
Ethan slammed the throttles forward.
The mahogany launch shot out of the boathouse like a missile, shattering the wooden exit doors into splinters as it launched into the open waters of the lake. Bullets sprayed across the stern, splintering the polished wood deck, but the boat quickly pulled out of range, its hull cutting through the dark water at forty knots.
From the rear deck, Victoria watched the Cole estate shrink into the distance. Bright searchlights were turning on along the shore, scanning the water.
"They'll have helicopter support within ten minutes," Victoria called out over the roar of the engines. "Where are those coordinates leading us?"
Ethan pulled out the letter, illuminating it with the dash light. The coordinates pointed to an isolated peninsula fifteen miles north—an old industrial shipping yard that had been abandoned since the collapse of the local steel mills in the late nineties.
"It leads to an old warehouse district," Ethan said. "Sarah’s family used to hold commercial property there before we were married."
"And what is the 'Blackthorn Archive'?" Victoria asked, leaning over the console.
"My wife's family name was Blackthorn," Ethan explained, his eyes fixed on the dark horizon ahead. "Her father was a senior director at the National Security Agency. When he died, everyone assumed his private records were destroyed. But Sarah... Sarah must have inherited them."
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He looked back at Lily, who was wrapped in a boat blanket, holding her doll tightly.
"My brother didn't just want a business ledger," Ethan realized, his voice turning cold. "Daniel is working with someone higher up. Someone who wants access to forty years of classified intelligence."
