Chapter 9 - Into the Current
Lincoln didn't drop his weapon. Instead, he grabbed my arm and pulled me down flat onto the metal floor of the elevator car just as a devastating volley of buckshot chewed through the upper panels of the elevator doors, showering us in a hail of hot metal fragments and splintered aluminum.
“Stay down!” Lincoln ordered, resting his pistol on the bottom track of the doors and firing three rapid, calculated shots into the gloom of the loading dock.
A heavy thud echoed across the concrete floor, followed by an angry shout: “He’s in the car! Flush them out!”
“Move!” Lincoln yelled, grabbing my hand and dragging me backward out of the elevator through the rear emergency maintenance hatch that led directly into the subterranean maintenance tunnels.
The air in the tunnel was thick, freezing, and choked with the smell of stagnant water and industrial runoff. Knee-high brown water rushed through the narrow concrete corridor, swirling violently around our shins as we splashed forward in the pitch black.
Behind us, shouts and the beam of tactical flashlights swept across the tunnel entrance.
“Over here!” someone yelled.
“Keep moving!” Lincoln urged, using his body to shield me against the driving current of the underground floodwater.
We rounded a sharp concrete corner, plunging deeper into the labyrinthine drainage system beneath Hadley. The roar of the raging river ahead grew louder, a deafening cascade of water that vibrated straight through the soles of our boots.
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After what felt like miles of stumbling through freezing darkness, a dim gray rectangle of light appeared ahead—the massive drainage outflow pipe emptying directly into the swollen Hadley River.
And waiting right at the mouth of the pipe, rocking gently against the turbulent waves, was a small, motorized utility skiff.
