Chapter 154 - The Lime Quarry
The exit of the bootlegger's tunnel was choked with rotting spruce boughs and heavy rusted mesh. Julian shouldered the iron frame outward with a groan of straining metal, sending a cascade of crusty, refrozen snow tumbling down around them.
The air that rushed into their lungs was bitterly cold—sub-zero Vermont wind that stung Emma’s cracked lips like lye.
They emerged onto a narrow shelf of bleached limestone overlooking a jagged, bowl-shaped abyss. Below them, the abandoned quarry lay half-submerged in black, stagnant ice, surrounded by rotting wooden derricks that looked like skeletal gallows against the snow-blind midnight sky. High above the quarry rim, the distant rotating pulse of emergency strobes stained the clouds an ugly crimson and blue.
"The local sheriffs," Emma realized, her stomach knotting. "She bought them too?"
"State police are chasing a manufactured decoy," Julian muttered, helping Emma balance as she carried Maya down a crumbling slope of scree. "Victor flooded the regional dispatch with reports of an armed kidnapping suspect heading south on Route 7. Every cop within thirty miles is looking for a black SUV with stolen Vermont plates. Nobody is looking down into the lime pits."
At the base of the quarry floor, half-hidden beneath a collapsed corrugated tin shed, sat an ancient, olive-drab Dodge Power Wagon. Its tires were chained, its rusted bodywork encrusted with decades of road salt and dried pine sap.
"Will it even start?" Emma asked, staring at the mechanical relic with profound doubt.
"Mechanical fuel pump, no onboard computer, twelve-volt battery kept on a trickle charger run from a geothermal line beneath the shed," Julian said, opening the heavy cab door with a sharp metallic clatter. "Electronic jammers won't touch it. Jump in. Keep Maya on the floorboards under the canvas."
Emma scrambled into the freezing passenger seat, pulling a heavy canvas tarp over Maya. The girl was shivering violently now, the bitter night air stripping away what little heat they had brought from the farmhouse.
Julian climbed into the driver’s seat, pulled the manual choke knob on the dashboard, and turned the heavy brass key.
The starter ground with a slow, agonizing groan: *chug... chug... chug...*
"Come on, you old bastard," Julian hissed, pumping the accelerator pedal.
From the quarry rim above, a sharp, white spotlight suddenly swept over the lip of the stone wall, cutting through the swirling blizzard like a beacon. The light paused, then locked squarely onto the corrugated shed.
*Chug... chug... ROAR.*
The ancient V8 engine exploded to life with a violent, uncorked roar, shaking the rusted cab and spewing a cloud of dark exhaust into the falling snow.
Above them, on the quarry rim, a series of rapid yellow flashes sparked against the darkness.
May you like
*Crack-crack-crack-crack.*
Rifle rounds tore through the tin roof of the shed, punching neat, jagged holes through the metal sheets. Julian dropped the heavy floor shifter into reverse, popped the clutch, and slammed the heavy truck backwards into the darkness just as the roof collapsed under a hail of heavy lead.
