Chapter 12 - Zero Count
The digital readout on the black transceiver blinked with indifferent, algorithmic precision: *00:41... 00:40...*
Cole Walker did not calculate odds; he calculated trajectory, distance, and mass. Forty seconds was an eternity under fire and a heartbeat when physics was your enemy. The gorge bridge sat five hundred yards down the winding asphalt of Route 9, its reinforced concrete spans hanging two hundred feet above the jagged granite teeth of the Black River. The ambulance, its emergency strobe bars flashing ruby and cobalt against the limestone cuts, was rolling at forty-five miles per hour toward the bridge deck.
"You're making a mistake, Chief," the driver of the utility truck murmured, his fingers hovering near the steering column, where a secondary detonator toggle rested. "Walk away. Marcus was a disposable pawn, but this operation has zero tolerance for loose threads. You walk down into the brush, you live. The girl dies, the ledger clears."
Cole didn’t speak. Words were friction, and friction slowed velocity.
In one fluid, savage motion born of a decade in the Teams, Cole reached through the open window of the utility truck. His left hand clamped onto the driver’s tactical vest, hauling the man’s throat violently against the doorframe, while his right palm struck upward in an open-hand heel strike into the operative's nasal septum. Bone crunched. The man's hands spasmed, his eyes rolling back in shock, but his thumb twitched toward the manual trip switch.
Ranger lunged. The Belgian Malinois leaped through the driver's side opening with seventy pounds of coiled muscle and canine fury, his jaws clamping onto the operative's forearm, dragging the arm down and away from the dashboard console.
Cole ripped the door open, threw the stunned contractor onto the wet gravel, and seized the heavy utility vehicle. "Ranger, out!" he roared. Ranger broke his hold, vaulting into the passenger seat as Cole slammed the gearshift into drive and floored the accelerator. The heavy four-wheel-drive truck broke traction, tires screaming against the slick asphalt, spraying gray crushed stone as it hurled itself down the descent toward the gorge.
*00:26... 00:25...*
Through the cracked windshield, Cole could see the rear doors of the ambulance. The police cruiser escorting it had already crossed the threshold of the bridge, its sirens wailing through the morning fog. Marcus sat handcuffed in the back of that cruiser, blissfully unaware that the men who had promised him an offshore retirement had marked him, his captive wife, and every officer on the tarmac for immediate liquidation.
Cole reached for the radio mounted on the utility console. The syndicate operative had been patched into the county emergency band, monitoring the chatter. Cole keyed the mic.
"Cruiser One, Ambulance Four, this is Chief Walker! Break off! Do not cross the span! The bridge is wired! Repeat, reverse immediately!"
"Walker? What the hell are you—" Deputy Miller’s voice crackled through the speaker, laced with static and irritation. "We're on the bridge now, Walker, clear the channel—"
"Get off the goddamn deck!" Cole screamed, slamming the utility truck into fourth gear. He was closing the distance, the heavy engine roaring like an enraged beast, but the ambulance was already forty yards onto the two-lane concrete bridge. Its brake lights flared suddenly as the paramedic behind the wheel registered the sheer urgency in Cole’s voice.
*00:10... 00:09...*
It was too late for the ambulance to reverse. The cruiser ahead had slammed its brakes, but the bridge was narrow, bordered by ancient steel guardrails. Beneath the center pillar, seventy feet down in the shadowed crevasse, the red LED transponder pulsed with sudden, manic rapidity.
Cole didn’t brake. He angled the utility truck toward the right-hand shoulder just before the bridgehead. "Brace, Ranger!"
Cole rammed the steel front bumper of the utility truck into the rear left quarter panel of the ambulance. The impact was violent, a deafening crunch of sheet metal and shattering glass. The force knocked the twelve-ton emergency vehicle sideways, skidding its rear axles across the threshold asphalt, dragging its weight off the bridge approach just as its front tires crossed onto the span.
*00:00.*
The world tore in half.
A shockwave of white heat, shattered granite, and pulverized concrete punched into the morning air. The primary detonation beneath the center pillar vaporized three thousand pounds of prestressed concrete in a single microsecond. The center span of the Black River Bridge folded downward like a snapped spine, plunging into the roaring chasm below.
The concussion wave hammered the utility truck, blowing out its windows in a rain of safety glass. The ambulance was thrown violently onto its side, sliding thirty feet down the roadbed before coming to a groaning, smoking halt against the raw stone embankment. Ahead, on the severed section of the bridge that hung suspended in mid-air by twisted rebar, Deputy Miller's cruiser teetered violently over the abyss.
Cole shook the ringing darkness from his head, the taste of copper and cordite thick on his tongue. Blood trickled from a laceration across his forehead. Beside him, Ranger let out a low, shaken whimper, shaking glass shards from his dense fur, before fixing his dark eyes on Cole, instantly ready.
"Good boy," Cole rasped, pushing open the crumpled driver’s door with his boot. "Up. We've got company coming."
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Through the thick haze of rising black smoke and dust, Cole looked back up the forestry road. Two black SUVs with reinforced push-bumpers and tinted glass had just crested the northern ridge. The syndicate had not relied solely on the bomb; they had sent an assault element to sanitize the kill zone.
***
