Chapter 6 - THE TRESTLE DROP
The megaphone feedback squealed across the black water.
"You have thirty seconds, Adrien!"
Daniel Mercer stood behind the glare of the SUV headlights.
His camel-hair coat fluttered in the freezing marsh wind.
Six men with semi-automatic rifles fanned out along the gravel ballast.
Inside the dark train car, Isabella’s breath came in ragged gasps.
"He'll do it," she whispered.
Her fingers were frozen around Adrien's lapel.
"He doesn't care about the passengers."
Adrien looked out the open door down into the churning black abyss.
The river was swollen with autumn rain.
Chunks of broken pier drifted through the foam sixty feet below.
A drop from this height would break ribs if you hit wrong.
If you hit right, the hypothermia would finish you in six minutes.
"Give me the silver key," Adrien said.
She shook her head fiercely.
"No. If he gets it—"
"Give it to me, Isabella."
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
It was the voice he used when he ordered an empire dismantled.
She unhooked the chain with numb fingers and pressed the silver key into his palm.
Adrien slipped it into his inner pocket beside his Kimber.
He took off his heavy wool overcoat and dropped it onto the floor.
"When we hit the water," he said, looking straight into her brown eyes,
"do not fight the current."
"Adrien—"
"Look at me."
She looked up.
Her pupils were wide with raw fear, but she didn't look away.
"I won't let you drown," he said.
"Ten seconds, Voss!" Mercer shouted through the bullhorn.
Adrien wrapped his right arm around Isabella’s waist.
He locked her body against his chest.
"Take a breath."
He kicked off the metal step into the void.
The wind tore the air from their lungs.
For two seconds, gravity erased everything: the headlights, the megaphone, the train.
They fell through absolute darkness.
The black surface of the river rose up like a slab of concrete.
They hit.
The impact drove the air from Adrien's chest in a violent spray of bubbles.
Cold needles drove into every nerve ending in his body.
The water was black, bitter with salt and mud.
The current seized them immediately, dragging them down toward the riverbed.
Isabella struggled instinctively, her arms flailing against the weight of her waterlogged coat.
Adrien kicked hard with both legs.
He refused to let go of her waist.
His boots felt like lead weights.
His dislocated shoulder screamed as he fought the swirling undertow.
He found the surface.
They broke through the foam, gasping for air in the freezing night.
Gunfire immediately erupted from the high railroad bridge above.
Muzzle flashes strobed against the dark underside of the iron trestle.
Bullets slapped into the water around them like thrown gravel.
Ptu. Ptu. Ptu.
Adrien hooked his arm beneath Isabella’s chin.
"Swim!" he yelled against the roar of the river.
He dragged her toward the dark silhouettes of the marsh reeds fifty yards downstream.
The bridge lights receded behind them.
The current swept them around a bend, away from the glare of the headlights.
Isabella’s lips were blue.
Her head dipped beneath the surface twice before Adrien’s boots scraped thick river mud.
He hauled her up through the sharp salt grass onto the frozen bank.
Both of them collapsed into the mud, shivering violently.
She lay on her back, staring at the gray sky, her teeth chattering so hard they clicked.
"You... you crazy... bastard," she choked out.
A grim smile touched Adrien’s cut lips.
"You called me Mr. Voss thirty minutes ago."
He sat up and looked back toward the railroad bridge.
The train had not exploded.
The SUV headlights were already turning around, racing toward the river access roads.
"Mercer knows the river routes," Adrien said, standing up on unsteady legs.
"We have ten minutes before his scouts reach this bank."
He reached down and pulled her to her feet.
She stumbled, her wet wool coat dragging her down.
Adrien reached around her and stripped the heavy wet coat from her shoulders, letting it fall into the mud.
Underneath, she wore a simple white cotton blouse.
The wet fabric clung to her skin.
Across her left collarbone was a brand.
A raised, scarred burn mark in the shape of a numbered seal: 049.
Adrien stared at the scar.
The air around them seemed to drop another ten degrees.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
Isabella pulled her arms across her chest, her jaw trembling with cold and shame.
"The Voss holding pens," she whispered.
May you like
"Ten years ago."
"Your father put it there."
