Chapter 9 - The Rail Yard Rendezvous
The old rail yard off Route 9 was a graveyard of rusted boxcars and rotting wooden ties, swallowed by the creeping shadows of the abandoned industrial park. The Ford pickup truck bounced violently over the unpaved access road, its headlights cutting through the dense fog rolling off the nearby river.
I kept my foot jammed against the floorboard, the engine screaming in protest as I tracked the tail-lights of the dark sedan carrying the men who had taken my family. They hadn't tried to stop me after the scuffle in the garage; instead, they had left Martha and the kids locked safely inside the house with a single armed guard while they led me here, believing I was walking willingly into their trap to save Sarah.
They didn't know I had already copied the files from the flash drive onto an encrypted cloud server accessible only through my satellite hotspot three miles back down the highway. Whatever happened tonight, the truth was already out of their control.
The pickup lurked to a halt beside a rusted flatbed railcar, its tires crunching loudly over loose gravel. The dark sedan was parked fifty yards ahead, its engine idling, doors flung wide open.
I killed the ignition, grabbed the crowbar from the passenger seat, and shoved open the truck door. The damp, metallic smell of river water and creosote filled my nostrils.
"Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Reynolds!" a voice boomed from the shadows between two towering grain silos, amplified slightly by a handheld megaphone. "Hands where we can see them! Bring the drive!"
"Where is Sarah?" I shouted back, stepping out into the harsh beam of a halogen floodlight mounted on a nearby utility pole. My eyes strained against the glare, trying to map out the positions of the men hidden in the darkness.
From behind a stack of weathered shipping crates, two figures emerged into the light. Sarah was stumbling forward, her wrists bound with heavy plastic ties behind her back, her face pale and streaked with dried dirt and tears. A stocky man in a dark jacket stood directly behind her, the barrel of a pistol pressed firmly against the base of her skull.
"Mark!" Sarah screamed, her voice cracking with pure terror. "Get out of here! It's a setup! They're not letting anyone walk away!"
"Shut her up!" the man holding the gun barked, shoving her forward so she nearly lost her footing on the gravel. He locked his cold, dead eyes onto me. "You brought the drive, Reynolds? Or did you decide to play games with your family's lives?"
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I pulled the slim metallic flash drive from my pocket, holding it up so the floodlight caught the red strip of tape on its base. "I have it right here. But she walks first. Both of you back off twenty paces, or I throw this drive into the river right now."
The gunman hesitated, his finger tightening around the trigger of his weapon as he weighed my bluff against the millions of dollars tied to the data on that little piece of plastic.
