Chapter 44 - The Night the Lake Froze
"The charges!" Klausner shrieked from the floor, clutching his broken leg in agony. "You fool! You haven't triggered the vault doors! You've armed the perimeter sea-walls! The ice will crush this entire bedrock shelf!"
"Then we have about four minutes to get out," I said coldly.
I grabbed the silver-headed cane and tossed it into the dark tunnel, then hauled Klausner to his feet by his collar. David grabbed the wounded assistant, disarming him and shoving him toward the spiral stairs.
We sprinted up the stairs of the lighthouse, the concrete beneath our boots vibrating violently as secondary explosive charges deep in the underwater reef began to detonate. Muffled booms rolled through the granite, sending long cracks racing up the whitewashed brick walls of the tower.
When we burst out onto the rocky causeway, the scene before us was like a nightmare forged in ice and fire.
The entire surface of Port Haven bay had frozen solid in the sub-zero gale, forming an endless plain of jagged, brilliant blue-white ice. Approaching fast from the dark open expanse of Lake Superior were two massive twin-engine hovercraft, their searchlights sweeping the frozen harbor. Armed mercenaries in white tactical winter camouflage were already fanning out across the ice toward the shore, moving straight toward the lights of the Port Haven Diner.
"They're bypassing the lighthouse," David shouted over the screaming wind. "They're going for the diner's cellar hatch! They're going to breach the vault from town!"
"They won't get within fifty yards of my kitchen," I snarled.
We shoved Klausner and his assistant into the back of David’s four-wheel-drive pickup truck, tied their wrists to the steel tie-downs, and David slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The tires caught the frozen gravel of the causeway, throwing rooster-tails of ice as we roared toward Main Street.
Ahead of us, the streetlights of Port Haven suddenly flickered and died. The consortium had cut the municipal power lines.
The entire town dropped into pitch-black darkness—except for one single point of light.
At the end of the pier, right where the street met the water, the wood-fired hearth of the Port Haven Diner was blazing through the bay windows. And standing outside on the frozen deck, silhouetted against the firelight, was not a helpless town—it was fifty local fishermen, dockworkers, and mechanics, armed with hunting rifles, flare guns, and iron gaff hooks.
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Leading them at the shoreline was Sheriff Thomas, his cruiser's red and blue lights slicing through the dark.
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