Chapter 28 - The Frozen Shore
They were ejected into the night air in a violent cascade of spray and foam, crashing down onto a muddy gravel bank at the edge of the river.
Daniel hit the rocks hard, his ribs screaming in agony, but he never released his grip on the boys. He dragged himself onto the frozen mud, gasping for air, vomiting river water onto the stones.
Beside him, Leo was coughing violently, curled in a ball. Julian lay on his back, staring up at the snow-covered canopy of pine trees above, chest heaving, his face pale as marble.
"Leo... Julian..." Daniel croaked, his voice raw.
"I'm here, Dad," Leo wheezed, shivering uncontrollably, his teeth clicking together.
Julian turned his head toward Daniel. For the first time, the boy reached out on his own, his freezing little hand closing around Daniel’s soaked sleeve. "We're alive."
"Yes," Daniel gasped, pulling both boys into his arms against the biting cold of the Black Forest night. "We're alive."
Around them, the forest was deathly quiet, save for the rush of the river and the distant, rhythmic thumping of helicopter blades somewhere over the ridge. Arthur’s private security was mobilizing. The chateau was less than two miles upstream; they had minutes before search dogs and thermal drones swept the shoreline.
Daniel stood up, his legs shaking, his clothes drenched and freezing into stiff sheets of ice against the sub-zero air. He looked down the bank. Moored beneath an overhang of weeping willows was a dark fiberglass motorboat, covered by camouflage netting.
"There," Daniel said, pointing toward the boat. "Come on."
He half-carried, half-dragged the two boys toward the vessel. Daniel tore away the netting, revealing a sleek, military-grade interceptor with twin outboard motors. The keys were in the ignition, left for Arthur’s own escape.
Daniel lifted Leo, then Julian, into the rear bench, wrapping them in an emergency thermal blanket stored beneath the helm.
"Stay down," Daniel ordered, stepping behind the wheel and turning the key.
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The twin engines roared to life, their low, muffled rumble vibrating through the water. Daniel threw the throttle forward, steering the vessel out into the wide, black expanse of the Rhine, heading downstream toward the French border.
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