Chapter 38 - THE RAID ON BLUE RIDGE QUARRY
"EXTRACTION SHAFT! NOW!" Arthur roared, throwing an assault pack onto Daniel’s shoulders.
The air in the bunker turned instantly acrid as toxic gray fumes began curling around the edges of the melting blast door. The steel plates groaned under thousands of degrees of heat, warping inward like molten wax.
Daniel scooped Lily into his arms, wrapping her face in a wet wool scarf. "Emily, stay on my belt! Nicole, behind Emily! Don't look back, whatever you hear behind us, DO NOT LOOK BACK!"
Arthur led the way toward the rear of the cavern, kicking open a rusted iron grate that led into an unlit, natural limestone crawlway. The air inside the shaft was damp, smelling of ancient mineral water and freezing mud.
"Arthur! You're coming with us!" Daniel yelled over the deafening hiss of the thermite breach.
Arthur turned around in the narrow mouth of the tunnel. He wasn't wearing his tactical pack. He had two bandoliers of .308 ammunition strapped across his chest, and in his right hand, he held the remote detonation switch for the quarry’s reserve blasting powder.
"I died eight years ago, Daniel," Arthur said, a grim, magnificent smile breaking across his weathered face. "I only stayed on this earth to make sure my boy got out of the trap."
"NO! Arthur, NO!" Daniel lunged toward the opening, but Arthur shoved him hard in the chest, knocking him back onto the slick floor of the escape shaft.
"Take your wife. Save your daughter. Destroy Evelyn Cross," Arthur ordered, his voice echoing with absolute finality. "There's a customized transport parked under the culvert at Route 522. Keys are under the wheel well. GO!"
Arthur slammed the heavy iron grate shut and slammed the sliding deadbolt into the rock face.
Through the iron bars, Daniel saw the main bunker blast door give way.
A blinding flash of tactical flashbangs illuminated the cavern. Four black-clad operatives in full military combat gear, armed with suppressed assault rifles, surged through the flaming breach. Behind them walked Julian, wearing an expensive wool overcoat over body armor, holding a silver-plated semi-automatic pistol.
"Drop the weapon, old man!" Julian shouted into the smoke. "Where is the child?!"
Arthur didn't answer. He lifted his tin cup of bourbon with his left hand, tipped it back in a slow, defiant toast, and smiled straight into Julian’s eyes.
With his right thumb, Arthur depressed the black toggle on the blasting switch.
"Arthur!" Daniel screamed through the grate.
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The entire mountain erupted.
Two hundred pounds of industrial mining dynamite packed into the quarry’s structural support pillars detonated simultaneously. The shockwave threw Daniel, Emily, Nicole, and Lily down the dark escape shaft like ragdolls as hundreds of thousands of tons of limestone collapsed in an apocalyptic roar, sealing the bunker, Julian, the strike team, and Arthur Bennett into an eternal, crushing grave.
