Chapter 7 - THE MECHANIC'S DEFENSEWe didn't wait for Walter's clean-up crew to arrive. Tom Miller gave us thirty minutes before he called in his coordinates to the dispatch center, buying us just enough time to lay our trap.
If Walter wanted to burn our lives down, we were going to give him a fire he couldn't put out.
Using the gasoline cans stored in the cabin's utility shed, lengths of heavy-duty winch cable, and the mechanical knowledge my father had drilled into me since I was old enough to hold a wrench, I turned the cabin and the surrounding ridge into a controlled industrial hazard.
At 3:30 a.m., the headlights of three black SUVs cut through the heavy mountain mist.
Men in tactical gear spilled out, moving with calculated, military precision toward the cabin porch. They didn't bother knocking; they kicked the front door wide open, rushing into the darkened room.
They didn't find us.
They found a tripwire connected to a five-gallon drum of old motor oil and a magnesium flare.
The resulting flash blinded the lead team, while the steel winch cable I had rigged to the front porch pillars snapped tight under tension, sweeping their legs out from under them in a chaotic tangle of limbs and tactical vests.
I watched from the tree line above, holding the detonator cable to an old car battery wired to a row of magnesium flares.
"Now, Emily," I whispered.
May you like
She pressed the switch.
The entire ridge lit up in a brilliant, searing white light that permanently blinded their night-vision gear and caught every single face on the digital security camera we had mounted to the highest pine tree.
