Chapter 9 - The Falling Crane
For three long, agonizing seconds, the only sound inside the massive foundry was the roar of rain beating against the corrugated steel roof and the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of water falling through the broken skylights.
Vance stared up at Emma, his fingers twitching slightly at his side. He was a man accustomed to total control, a man who bought politicians and commanded private armies. But standing below a trembling girl with a gold locket dangling over a dark abyss, he hesitated.
"Lower your weapons," Vance commanded his team quietly.
The six tactical operators slowly dropped their gun barrels toward the concrete floor.
"Smart choice," Emma said softly. She took a slow step backward toward the crane control panel where Adrian was standing in the shadows.
"Now," Vance said, extending his hand again. "Bring the locket down here, Miss Hayes. Let us end this game."
"I don't think so," Emma said.
She turned and threw the gold locket—not into the dark pit, but directly to Adrian.
Adrian caught the gold piece seamlessly with his left hand, while his right hand slammed down on the heavy red emergency power button on the crane control panel.
A deafening siren shrieked through the cavernous foundry as a massive electrical arc illuminated the darkness. The ancient industrial power grid of the factory surged back to life with a mechanical roar.
Above Vance's head, the massive iron crane assembly groaned violently under forty years of rust and neglect. The heavy four-ton iron ladle snapped its rusted support cables and came crashing down directly onto the central computer terminal and Vance's communication array.
BOOM!
The concussive force of the metal impact echoed through the building like a bomb detonation. Concrete floorboards shattered, sending cloud plumes of dust, sparks, and crushed electronic debris flying into the air. Vance's men were thrown off their feet by the violent shockwave.
"Go!" Adrian roared, catching Emma by her waist and pulling her toward the emergency catwalk stairs behind the crane mechanism.
"Kill them!" Vance's voice screamed from beneath the cloud of dust. "Kill them both!"
Suppressed gunfire erupted once more, bullets pinging wildly off the heavy iron girders around them. Adrian fired three cover shots down into the dust cloud, driving Vance's men behind the concrete support pillars, before pulling Emma through a heavy steel fire door that opened onto the exterior roof of the foundry.
The torrential rain struck them instantly, blinding and freezing, but the air was clean.
Spread out below them was the broad valley, bathed in the gray light of dawn. And parked on the flat roof of the transformer building fifty yards away was Vance's secondary tactical transport helicopter—its rotors idling slowly, its pilot watching the main entrance below, completely unaware that the targets were now on the roof above him.
Adrian turned to Emma, his face covered in soot and rainwater, his dark eyes glowing with a ferocious, triumphant light.
"Can you fly a helicopter, Emma?" he asked, a wild grin breaking across his face.
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Emma wiped the rainwater from her eyes and stared at him in utter disbelief. "Are you out of your mind?! I'm an archivist!"
"Then today is the day you expand your résumé!" Adrian shouted over the roar of the wind, taking her hand and sprinting directly toward the waiting aircraft across the rain-soaked roof.
