Chapter 28 - The Timber Roads
We didn't take the highway. I pointed the Explorer down a narrow, unpaved logging track that snaked deep into the heart of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, where the canopy overhead was so thick it turned midday into a dim, twilight green.
Behind us, through the rearview mirror, I caught the faint glint of a dark vehicle kicking up a rooster-tail of white gravel around a distant bend. They were still on our tail, closing the gap slowly as the terrain grew steeper and more rugged.
"Nate, the bridge ahead," Sarah warned, pointing through the windshield as we approached a wooden span crossing a rushing, white-water creek. "The spring thaw washed out part of the pilings last month. The county put up a barricade."
I slammed on the brakes, sliding the Explorer to a halt fifty yards before the broken wooden bridge. The creek below was a churning torrent of dark, ice-cold mountain water rushing over jagged granite boulders.
"Get out. Now," I ordered, grabbing our bags from the back seat.
We scrambled out of the vehicle just as the black sedan rounded the final curve of the logging road, tires screaming against the loose gravel before sliding to a halt twenty yards behind us.
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Two men stepped out of the sedan. They weren't wearing expensive suits like Sterling or the clean tactical gear of federal agents. They were wearing heavy canvas hunting jackets, knit caps, and carrying short-barreled shotguns—survivors of the old Chicago syndicate who had nothing left to lose and everything to prove.
"End of the line, Moretti!" the taller one shouted, his voice echoing off the canyon walls as he raised his shotgun. "Hand over the girl and the box, and maybe we let you crawl back to the highway!"
