Chapter 4 - The Calculus of Survival
The guard named Miller was bored. He had been standing in the cold Hammond warehouse for three hours, listening to the rain and waiting for Damian Cross to finish his meeting in South Bend.
He spat on the stained concrete and turned toward the small office where they had stashed the woman and the kid. Through the frosted glass, he noticed the faint shadow of movement.
"Hey," he called out to his partner, who was sitting on a wooden crate fifty feet away, cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife. "Check the broad. I think she’s moving."
Miller unholstered his Glock 19, holding it loosely at his side as he pushed open the heavy wooden door of the office. "Sit down, lady, or I’ll—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Claire Bennett was not sitting on the floor. She was standing directly behind the door, leaning her entire body weight into a forty-pound red metal fire extinguisher she had ripped off the wall bracket.
As Miller stepped through the frame, she swung the heavy cylinder with all the momentum her small frame could muster. The brass base of the extinguisher struck Miller square in the side of his jaw with a sickening, heavy crack.
The guard went limp immediately, his gun clattering onto the floor as his large body hit the concrete like a sack of wet salt.
Claire fell backward from the impact, her chest heaving, her left arm wrapped tightly around Eli, who was strapped securely inside her buttoned coat against her chest. Her breath hit the cold air in white clouds. Her arms trembled violently, the skin on her knuckles split and bleeding from the force of the strike.
"Step one," she whispered to herself, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "Step one complete."
She dropped to her knees, her hands frantic as she searched the unconscious man's belt. She grabbed his keycard, his heavy tactical flashlight, and the dark blue windbreaker he was wearing. She jammed the keycard into her pocket, wrapped the windbreaker around Eli for extra protection against the cold, and picked up the dead guard's flashlight.
Outside the office, the second guard stood up from his crate. "Miller? What was that noise?"
Claire didn't answer. She didn't run back toward the main warehouse floor—that was where the second man was standing. Instead, she pointed her flashlight toward the back of the small office, spotting a narrow aluminum door marked Emergency Service Exit - Authorized Personnel Only.
She lunged for the door, pressing the keycard against the electronic reader.
The light flashed red. Denied.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" the second guard yelled, his heavy boots pounding against the floor as he sprinted toward the office.
Claire didn't panic. She looked at the keycard lock, then at the heavy flashlight in her hand. She raised the flashlight and smashed the glass cover of the emergency bypass box beside the frame. She reached into the sharp glass, her fingers cutting deep, and pulled the yellow emergency wire with all her strength.
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The magnetic lock released with a loud, metallic clack. The heavy door swung open into the howling, freezing wind of the loading bay outside.
Claire plunged forward into the dark, clutching the baby to her heart as the guard entered the room behind her, firing two wild shots into the cold rain.
