Chapter 5 - THE DERAILMENT OF TRUTH
Z
The force of the bullet slammed Cole back against his desk, spraying papers and blood across the cabin floor. I dropped to the floor instantly as a second round whistled through the air, embedding itself deep into the log wall above my head.
"Cole!" I yelled, crawling over to where he lay gasping, his hands clutching his chest as dark blood pooled around his uniform.
He grabbed my jacket collar with a dying man's strength, his breath coming in wet, terrible rattles. "The train..." he choked out, blood spilling over his lips. "11:45... Spur Line 9... It's not weapons... It's..."
His grip loosened, his eyes rolled back, and his body went limp.
I reached into his coat pocket, grabbing his encrypted keycard and his personal ledger, before throwing myself low out the side door into the snow just as a third sniper round shattered the desk lamp.
Rolling down the steep embankment toward the river, I used the terrain to break line of sight, sprinting through the icy water and deep snow back toward the Subaru. The sniper was set up on the opposite ridge—a professional overwatch position meant to liquidate Cole the moment he became a liability.
I burst out of the tree line and slid into the driver's seat of the car, breathing heavily.
Rachel gasped, grabbing my arm, her eyes wide as she saw the blood on my coat. "Ethan! Are you hit?!"
"It's not mine," I said, putting the car into gear and dropping the clutch, tearing away down the dirt road without lights. "Cole is dead. A long-range marksman took him out before he could finish talking."
Rachel pressed her back against the seat, her hands trembling as she looked out the back window into the pitch-black woods. "They killed a sheriff? Right in front of you?"
"Cole was a loose end," I said, my minds racing to piece together the dying man's last words. "Spur Line 9. 11:45. That’s in twenty minutes."
"What’s at Spur Line 9?"
"An abandoned industrial rail yard five miles north of town," I replied, checking the time on the dashboard. "Cole said Northstar is moving something through there tonight. Something big enough that they were willing to execute an elected official to protect it."
"Ethan, we need to call Ward!" Rachel urged, holding up the satellite phone. "Let the federal team handle the train! You did your job—you found the link!"
I looked at her, the dashboard light reflecting off her terrified, determined face. "If Northstar is moving classified military assets through a civilian rail yard, they aren't going to wait for JAG to set up a roadblock. If Ward's team arrives cold, they're going to walk straight into an ambush. Northstar has heavy military hardware on the ground, Rachel. I saw their setup."
"So what are you going to do?" she asked, her voice cracking with fear and frustration. "You're one man with a hand pistol!"
"I'm not going to fight a private army," I said, pulling up the map display on my phone. "I'm going to intercept the signal. Cole had a keycard. If I can reach the control tower at the rail yard, I can stop that train before it hits the main line."
"And if you get caught?"
I reached over and placed my hand over hers. "Then you use that phone, drive straight to the state police barracks in Kalispell, and hand them Cole's ledger. Don't look back for me."
"No," Rachel said firmly, her jaw setting into a line of pure defiance. "I'm not running to Kalispell while you play martyr in a train yard. You want to stop that train? You're going to need someone to run the manual switchboard while you cover the floor."
I stared at her, stunned by the sudden steel in her voice. "Rachel, that's absurd. You don't know how to run a rail switch."
"My father worked for Burlington Northern for twenty years, Ethan!" she snapped back, tears shining in her eyes. "I spent my summers in those control towers while you were playing soldier! You need me tonight whether you like it or not!"
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For three years, I thought I was protecting a fragile small-town archivist. In reality, I was married to a woman who possessed her own quiet strength, buried under years of routine.
"All right," I said softly, stepping hard on the accelerator as the Subaru roared toward Spur Line 9. "We do it together."
