Chapter 49 - THE VAULT AT GOVERNORS ISLAND
Clara reached into the ceiling cavity, her fingers tearing against sharp aluminum edges until she felt the cold titanium casing of the master drive. She gripped the release lever and pulled with all her strength.
With a sharp *click*, the blue drive popped free into her hands.
"Got it!" she cried.
"Noah, hold onto Clara’s waist and don't let go, no matter what happens!" Daniel commanded, his voice tight with desperation.
He scrambled to the floor, grabbing the fallen operative’s tactical belt. Attached to the harness were two magnetic breaching charges. Daniel slammed both charges onto the primary steel haul cable running through the tram’s upper suspension assembly.
"Daniel, what are you doing?!" Clara screamed. "If you cut the cable, we fall!"
"Not if the emergency counterweight brake catches!" Daniel shouted, his finger on the detonator switch. "The secondary safety hook will grab the lower emergency cable! It'll drop forty feet, but it will jam us onto the Roosevelt Island pylon instead of falling into the sea! Hold on to the safety bars!"
Daniel threw himself around Clara and Noah, locking his arms through the floor-anchored steel handrails.
He triggered the detonator.
*BOOM!*
The main haul cable snapped like an over-stretched guitar string, the severed steel whip lashing upward into the helicopter’s tail rotor. The helicopter violently spun out of control, its blades screeching against the Queensboro Bridge before exploding into a catastrophic fireball that illuminated the Manhattan skyline.
Inside the tram, gravity vanished.
The car plummeted forty feet in total freefall. Clara’s stomach leapt into her throat, a scream tearing from her lungs as the wind roared through the shattered glass.
*SCREEEEEECH!*
With a bone-shattering, teeth-rattling slam, the secondary emergency brake clamped onto the lower cable. Sparks rained in a blinding waterfall as the tram skidded along the cable for fifty yards before slamming hard into the concrete pylon of Roosevelt Island, coming to a dead stop.
Silence descended. Only the sound of the freezing wind and the distant sirens wailed across the water.
Daniel kicked open the buckled side door. Clara crawled out onto the cold concrete ledge of the pylon, clutching Noah to her chest.
They were alive.
Noah looked up into the swirling snow, his little face covered in soot, but his eyes were wide, clear, and steady. "We did it, Mommy Clara. We broke the cage."
Clara kissed his cold forehead, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face. "Yes, baby. We did."
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Daniel dropped down beside them, holding the glowing titanium drive. "We need to get to Governors Island. There’s a decommissioned underground military transmitter that broadcasts directly into the Library of Congress and the Department of Justice mainframe. Once this drive hits that server, it broadcasts globally. Elizabeth can’t kill the world."
***
