Chapter 11 - Fire Behind the Glass
The instant Eleanor pulled the emergency lever, the factory seemed to inhale.
Then Bay 1 exploded with white steam.
Not fire. Not shrapnel. A controlled wall of scalding vapor blasted from six ceiling-mounted purge valves designed to suppress chemical leaks and force workers away from dangerous machinery. Eleanor had redirected the system toward the loading floor and lowered the temperature enough to prevent fatal burns, but Victor's men didn't know that.
They screamed anyway.
Two mercenaries dropped their weapons immediately, covering their faces as the dense fog swallowed them. Another stumbled backward into a steel pallet rack. Greg Higgins shrieked and threw himself behind a forklift.
Victor Vance reacted faster.
He grabbed Higgins by the collar and dragged him toward the western freight corridor.
"Move!"
Eleanor slammed another switch.
The security shutters dropped.
Three crashed into the concrete floor with deafening metallic booms, sealing the armed men inside separate sections of the plant.
But the fourth shutter stopped halfway down.
Someone had jammed the track.
Victor.
Through the security camera, Eleanor watched him crawl beneath it.
And he knew exactly where he was going.
"The old rail service tunnel," Eleanor whispered.
Her father had built the narrow maintenance passage twenty-five years ago to reach the switching controls beneath the loading yard. It wasn't on modern blueprints.
But Greg Higgins had worked at the plant long enough to know about it.
Eleanor grabbed her radio.
"Thomas, keep everyone downstairs. Victor is heading west."
A gunshot cracked outside.
The reinforced glass beside Eleanor's face spiderwebbed.
She dropped behind the console.
"Found you," Victor called through the steam.
Another bullet punched into the doorframe.
Eleanor's heart hammered, but her hands remained surprisingly steady.
Then came a different sound.
Engines.
Several of them.
Tires screamed outside the factory gates.
Gunfire erupted near the loading dock.
Victor cursed.
"Calder."
Rafe had arrived.
Eleanor heard his voice before she saw him.
"VANCE!"
It thundered across the factory floor.
The rage in that single word made even Eleanor's blood run cold.
Victor fired toward the entrance.
Rafe's security team returned fire from behind steel columns, forcing Victor farther toward the rail corridor.
Then Rafe appeared through the thinning steam.
His coat was gone. Blood stained one sleeve, though Eleanor couldn't tell whether it belonged to him. His black eyepatch made his scar seem even more savage beneath the amber emergency lights.
His visible eye found the cracked control booth.
"Eleanor!"
"I'm okay!"
The relief on his face lasted less than a second.
Victor saw it too.
He smiled.
"There it is," Victor called. "Your weakness."
Rafe raised his pistol.
"My wife isn't my weakness."
Victor backed beneath the half-lowered shutter.
"Everyone has one."
He disappeared.
Rafe started after him.
"Rafe!" Eleanor shouted.
He stopped.
"Rail tunnel," she said. "He'll reach the western switching yard."
Rafe's jaw tightened.
"Marcus has deputies covering the outer perimeter."
"Victor probably knows that."
She left the booth and joined him.
Rafe crossed the distance between them in four enormous strides.
His hands landed on her shoulders.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
His eye traveled over every inch of her face.
Then he pulled her against him.
Hard.
For once, there was nothing controlled about Rafe Calder.
His arms locked around her as if holding her together might keep the entire world from stealing her.
Eleanor felt his heart pounding against her cheek.
"You terrified me," he whispered.
She wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I terrified myself."
Behind them, deputies arrested the mercenaries trapped by the shutters.
Thomas emerged from the bunker with the workers.
Marcus entered seconds later, phone pressed against his ear.
"Western perimeter reports movement," he announced. "Victor and Higgins stole a maintenance truck."
Rafe released Eleanor slowly.
"Which road?"
"They didn't take a road."
Eleanor understood before Marcus finished.
"The freight rails."
Marcus nodded.
"They're heading east along the old Whitmore service line."
Rafe's expression darkened.
Victor had escaped.
But not cleanly.
Eleanor walked to the fallen shotgun Victor had abandoned during the steam release.
Beside it lay a waterproof leather case.
She opened it.
Inside were shipping schedules, coded account numbers, and photographs of dozens of freight containers.
Marcus went completely still.
Rafe looked over her shoulder.
Eleanor turned the first photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
Tomorrow.
"He wasn't here only for our rail keys," she said.
Marcus's face hardened.
"No."
Eleanor looked toward the tunnel through which Victor had vanished.
May you like
"He has a shipment coming."
"And now," Rafe said quietly, "we know where to find it."
