Chapter 9
Z
The sharp, suffocating stench of gasoline poured under the heavy iron door at the top of the spiral staircase, followed quickly by a dense, grey plume of smoke. The crackle of flames outside echoed down the stone walls of the courthouse basement like a roaring engine.
"Becca!" Anna panicked, coughing as the smoke began to fill the narrow stairwell. "The door is locked from the outside! We're trapped!"
"Jenkins, cover Anna!" I ordered, my military instincts taking over instantly. Panic was a luxury we couldn't afford; in a enclosed space with an accelerating fire, we had less than three minutes before the smoke rendered us unconscious.
I rushed back to the wooden work table, grabbed the massive leather-bound Volume 104, and shoved it securely into Anna’s leather messenger bag. "Keep this bag safe, Annie. No matter what happens."
Agent Jenkins rushed up the spiral stairs, her weapon drawn, and kicked the heavy iron door with all her weight. The door rattled, but the heavy deadbolt held firm.
"It's reinforced steel!" Jenkins yelled back down, coughing as smoke billowed around her. "The lock mechanism is on the outside! We can't shoot our way through this door!"
I scanned the basement with my tactical flashlight, the beam cutting through the rapidly thickening grey haze. The basement had no windows—it was a subterranean vault built beneath the 1890 stone foundation. But my eyes caught a metallic ventilation duct running along the ceiling at the far end of the archive room.
"Over here!" I yelled, waving my light toward the back wall.
Jenkins and Anna hurried down the aisle. The ventilation duct was roughly three feet wide, framed by old iron grating that led toward the exterior foundation wall for air circulation.
I grabbed a heavy metal archive ladder sitting nearby and slammed it against the wall beneath the duct. I climbed up, pulled a tactical combat knife from my boot, and jammed the blade into the edge of the iron vent cover, leveraging my full body weight against it.
POP!
The rusted screws snapped, and the iron cover fell to the floor with a loud clang.
Darkness and a draft of cool, wet outdoor air rushed through the vent opening.
"It leads to the window well on the east side of the courthouse!" I called down. "Jenkins, go first! Clear the exit!"
Agent Jenkins hoisted herself up the ladder and crawled into the narrow metal shaft. Seconds later, her voice echoed back down. "It's tight, but it leads outside to the alleyway! Anna, come on!"
I grabbed Anna by her waist, lifting her up onto the ladder. "Go, Annie! Crawl straight toward the light! Don't look back!"
Anna squeezed into the duct, pulling the heavy messenger bag with her.
Below us, the heat was becoming unbearable. The iron door at the top of the stairs groaned as the fire on the other side intensified. The dry paper in the front archives caught fire, and a wall of orange flames burst through the wooden shelving at the far end of the room.
I scrambled up the ladder, pulling myself into the narrow, cold metal duct just as a massive fireball engulfed the work table below.
I crawled on my elbows and knees through the tight space, the cold rain air washing over my soot-covered face as I reached the end of the shaft. Jenkins and Anna pulled me out into a deep concrete window well in the narrow alleyway behind the courthouse.
Rain poured down on us, washing away the black ash clinging to our clothes and faces.
Above us, thick black smoke was billowing from the basement grates of the courthouse, and the town's fire sirens began to wail in the distance.
Anna was shaking violently, clutching the messenger bag against her chest, but she was unhurt. "We made it... oh God, Becca, someone just tried to burn us alive!"
"It was Martha Vance," Jenkins said, her face dark with fury as she reloaded her sidearm and checked her phone. "She locked that door the second we went down there."
"Look," I said, pointing toward the end of the alleyway.
A black Range Rover was speeding out of the courthouse parking lot, its tires spinning on the wet asphalt as it headed toward the highway leading out of town. Sitting in the passenger seat, visible through the rain-slicked window, was Martha Vance, holding a leather travel bag.
"She's running for Julian's private airstrip in Franklin," Jenkins said, pulling out her radio. "I'm calling the Federal Marshals and State Police to set up a roadblock on Highway 11!"
"Roadblocks won't stop them if Julian's security team is driving," I said, walking toward my rental SUV parked near the corner of the plaza. "They have high-powered vehicles and private escorts. We catch them ourselves."
"Rebecca, wait!" Major Hayes’s voice called out.
He had just arrived in his sedan, accompanied by Sheriff Miller. The sheriff’s face was filled with utter disbelief as he looked at the smoke pouring from the historic courthouse basement.
"Sheriff!" I yelled over the sound of the rain. "Martha Vance just set fire to the county archives and is fleeing south on Highway 11! She tried to kill us!"
Sheriff Miller’s eyes hardened into cold flint. The last lingering shred of loyalty he had felt for the Vance family vanished completely. "Not in my county," Miller growled. He clicked his radio microphone. "All units, this is Sheriff Miller. We have an active arson and attempted murder suspect fleeing south on Highway 11 in a black Range Rover. Code Three. Use PIT maneuvers if necessary. Intercept and block."
"I'm driving, Sheriff," I said, stepping toward my SUV. "Anna, stay with Major Hayes!"
"No!" Anna shouted, gripping my arm firmly. "I'm coming with you, Becca! That ledger in this bag is Dad's proof! I am not letting it out of my sight!"
I looked at my sister's fierce, determined eyes. She wasn't the scared girl from the church anymore. She was a Carter, standing right beside me in the storm.
"Get in!" I commanded.
We slammed into the SUV, the engine roaring to life as I floored the accelerator, spinning the tires on the wet pavement and blowing past Town Square in pursuit of the Range Rover.
The rain was coming down in sheets now, visibility dropping to less than fifty feet on the winding, dangerous mountain highway. The two-lane road carved through steep rock cliffs on one side and a sheer three-hundred-foot drop into the river gorge on the other.
Ahead of us, through the blur of the windshield wipers, I spotted the red taillights of the Range Rover, weaving recklessly past local traffic at eighty miles an hour.
"There they are!" Anna called out, holding tight to the dashboard as I shifted gears, closing the gap.
Suddenly, a second vehicle—a heavy black Ford F-250 pickup truck with dark tinted windows and a steel brush guard—pulled out from a side logging road behind us, accelerating aggressively.
"Becca! Behind us!" Anna screamed.
I glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see the heavy steel bumper of the F-250 slam into the rear of our SUV.
BANG!
The impact jolted the SUV violently, sending us skidding across the slick asphalt toward the guardrail over the gorge. Spark showered into the rain as my side fender scraped against the corrugated steel barrier.
I wrestled with the steering wheel, pumping the brakes, using my advanced evasive driving training to regain traction just feet before the barrier gave way.
"Julian's security!" I shouted over the roar of the engine. "They were waiting in ambush!"
The F-250 pulled up beside us, its heavy steel frame looming like a monster over our smaller SUV. The passenger window rolled down, and a man in a tactical jacket aimed a heavy pneumatic cable gun directly at our front tire.
"Hold on!" I yelled to Anna.
I slammed hard on the brakes.
The heavy F-250 overshot us by ten feet. As it surged ahead, I turned the wheel hard to the right, driving our front steel bull-bar straight into the rear quarter-panel of the pickup truck—executing a textbook Precision Immobilization Technique (PIT) maneuver.
The heavy F-250 spun violently out of control on the wet road, its tires shrieking as it flipped onto its side, crashing into the rock face of the mountain cliff with a deafening crunch of metal and shattering glass.
We surged past the wrecked truck, pursuing the Range Rover as it approached the heavy iron gates of the Vance Estate & Mining Facility at the base of the mountain ridge.
The gates were opening, and sitting on a private helipad inside the compound was a sleek, black twin-engine helicopter, its rotors already spinning, kicking up spray in the rainy air.
Standing near the helicopter, holding a leather briefcase, was Julian Vance.
"He's fleeing the state!" Anna yelled.
I didn't slow down. I drove the SUV straight through the heavy chain-link gates of the private facility, smashing through the wooden security booth.
The Range Rover slammed to a stop near the helipad, and Martha Vance stumbled out, running toward Julian and the waiting helicopter.
I brought our SUV to a skidding stop fifty feet from the helipad, blocking the path to the main runway.
I unbuckled my seatbelt, pulled my dress uniform cover tight over my head, and stepped out into the pouring rain, holding the official federal evidence folder in my hand.
Anna stepped out beside me, carrying the leather messenger bag containing the 1986 archive ledger.
Julian Vance paused on the steps of the helicopter, his expensive coat soaked by the rain, his cold pale eyes staring at us in absolute, furious disbelief.
"You..." Julian spat, his voice barely audible over the deafening roar of the helicopter blades. "You were supposed to burn in that basement!"
"Your family's reign over this mountain is over, Julian!" I shouted over the noise of the rotors, stepping toward him with unyielding purpose. "We have the 1986 cancelled check stub! We have the Caymans paper trail! And the FBI has already seized your private bank accounts in Nashville!"
Julian's face twisted into an ugly, desperate mask. He looked at Martha, then looked at the two federal marshals and Sheriff Miller’s cruisers as they tore through the shattered compound gates, their sirens wailing, surrounding the helipad.
State troopers and federal agents spilled out of the cruisers, weapons drawn, pointing directly at Julian Vance, Martha Vance, and his private pilot.
"Julian Vance!" Agent Jenkins’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker. "Step away from the aircraft and put your hands on your head! You are under arrest for attempted murder, arson, federal mail fraud, and corporate conspiracy!"
Julian stood on the wet helipad, surrounded by flashing red and blue lights, the rain pouring over his withered face. The political machine he had built over forty years, the multi-million-dollar lithium buyout, his family's absolute hold over Tennessee—all of it had collapsed in a single morning.
Slowly, painfully, Julian Vance dropped his silver-handled cane onto the wet concrete. He raised his hands into the air.
Sheriff Miller walked up to Julian, pulling a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his belt.
As the cuffs clicked around Julian’s wrists, Sheriff Miller looked at him with cold contempt. "This is for Thomas Carter."
I stood beside Anna in the pouring rain, watching as Julian Vance and Martha Vance were loaded into the back of the federal transport vans.
The storm clouds above the mountain ridge began to part, allowing a single beam of bright, golden sunlight to break through the grey mist, illuminating the green timberland of the Carter estate high above us.
Anna wiped the rain from her face, looking up at the sunlight, a soft, beautiful smile breaking across her face.
"We did it, Becca," Anna whispered, hugging the messenger bag tight against her chest. "Dad's mountain is finally safe."
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I put my arm around my sister's shoulders, looking up at the bright sky over Willow Creek. The war was over. The truth had won.
And for the first time in twelve years, I was finally home.
