Chapter 59 - The Escape through the Ice
Campbell fired two shots through the kitchen doorway, driving back the first operative in tactical gray winter gear. "Cellar! Now, Emma! Move!"
I grabbed Lily tightly against my chest, pulled my scarf up over her mouth and nose to protect her from the burning gas, and kicked open the heavy iron-reinforced door leading to the root cellar. We tumbled down the stone steps into the darkness, the damp cold of the subterranean earth biting at our faces.
Above us, heavy boots pounded across the floorboards, followed by the muffled chatter of suppressed automatic weapons. Campbell returned fire with disciplined, deliberate double-taps, his footsteps retreating toward the cellar opening.
"Down here!" I yelled through the dark.
Campbell tumbled down the stairs, kicking the cellar door shut and throwing a heavy oak crossbar into place. A second later, a spray of bullets splintered through the heavy wood above our heads, but the timber held.
"The boathouse tunnel is behind the wine racks," Campbell wheezed, wiping blood from his cheek where a shard of flying glass had grazed him. "Push the center shelf!"
Together, we threw our weight against the massive cedar shelving unit. It groaned and swung inward on rusted iron hinges, revealing a low, stone-lined passageway that smelled of frozen lake water and rotting timber.
I pushed Lily ahead of me into the tunnel. "Keep crawling, sweetheart. Crawl toward the blue light at the end."
Lily crawled with astonishing determination, her little boots kicking behind her, never letting go of her bear. Campbell brought up the rear, his tactical light illuminating the damp ceiling as water dripped steadily onto our necks.
Behind us, a muffled explosion blew the cellar door off its hinges. The operatives were inside the house.
We reached the end of the tunnel where an iron grate looked out onto the interior of the old boathouse. Below us, suspended in a wooden slip, was an old twin-engine aluminum patrol boat, covered in tarps and crusted with frost.
"Can you start it?" I asked Campbell as he kicked the rusted padlock off the grate.
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"It runs on aviation fuel stored in sealed tanks," Campbell said, dropping down onto the boat deck and catching Lily as I lowered her into his arms. "If Arthur built this contingency, he kept the engines prepped."
He turned the master ignition switch on the console. The twin marine engines coughed once, spewed a cloud of pale exhaust, and then roared to life with a deep, throbbing rumble that vibrated through the floorboards.
