"There," I whispered, pointing through the gray drizzle.
Ahead, the river curved sharply against a jagged wall of gray stone crowned by towering loblolly pines. High on the bluff above, barely visible through the thick canopy of hickory and cedar, rose the slate gables and limestone chimneys of the Vance manor house. An eight-foot security fence topped with razor wire ran along the crest, interrupted by a steel observation tower equipped with a rotating high-definition thermal camera.
"Camera's sweeping west," Marcus murmured into his low-profile throat mic. "Kill the motors. Drift on the current."
The silent outboards clicked off. We slipped through the brown water using short, carbon-fiber hand paddles, keeping tight against the undercut stone overhang where the cliff shadowed the surface.
Beneath the limestone face, where the current swirled into an eddy, a dark semi-circular archway yawned just inches above the muddy foam. The mouth of the ancient intake tunnel was choked with driftwood and rusted iron grating, but the central gate—built by David Cole's father forty years ago—had a four-foot gap where the iron bars had long since rusted through near the waterline.
Marcus grabbed a jagged outcropping of wet stone, halting our drift. "Stack up. Two-man teams. Suppressors on, white lights off until we clear the masonry cellar."
The operators moved with fluid, lethal discipline. We pulled the inflatable boats into the flooded maw of the tunnel, tying them off to ancient, slime-slicked bronze ringbolts set into the rock.
The transition into the tunnel was like stepping into the throat of a tomb. The air was cold, thick with the stench of stagnant river silt, wet lime, and centuries of decaying subterranean moss. The roar of the Cahaba River outside faded into a hollow, rhythmic slosh that echoed off the hand-hewn limestone blocks above our heads.
I unholstered my weapon, clicked on the low-intensity green lens of my headlamp, and took point.
The water in the intake canal reached our waists, pushing hard against our thighs as we waded forward through sixty yards of pitch-black conduit. The stone walls narrowed until our shoulders brushed the damp rock.
Ahead, the gentle upward incline of the floor lifted us out of the water onto a slick flagstone landing.
A heavy iron ladder, red with peeling rust, was bolted directly into the stone wall, ascending thirty feet into an overhead square opening. At the top of the shaft rested a heavy, reinforced cast-iron drainage grate—the service access to the manor’s lower wine and boiler vaults.
Marcus climbed first, testing each rung with his combat boots. He reached the iron grate, braced his broad back against the limestone shaft, and pushed upward with his legs.
The grate did not move. It was locked from above with a heavy horizontal slide-bolt.
Marcus pulled a compact, silent hydraulic spreader from his tactical pouch, slotted the hardened steel jaws between the iron bars and the stone collar, and began working the hand pump.
Crack. Screech.
The ancient mortar around the strike plate crumbled in a shower of gray dust. With a muffled grunt, Marcus shifted the iron barrier aside and hoisted himself through the gap into the darkness above.
Five seconds later, his hand reached down through the opening, signaling the all-clear.
I climbed the rusted ladder, hauling myself up through the floor.
We were inside a sprawling, subterranean cellar that looked more like an armory than a wine vault. Vaulted brick ceilings stretched into the gloom, supported by massive granite pillars. Wooden wine casks lined the perimeter, but the center of the concrete floor was crowded with stacked crates of commercial ammunition, military rations, communication gear, and two heavy steel workbenches equipped with industrial toolkits.
The air smelled of gun oil, dry cedar, and fresh diesel exhaust.
"Listen," Marcus whispered, raising a gloved hand.
From somewhere above us, through the thick oak flooring and heavy sub-beams, came the muffled, urgent sound of running feet, the harsh bark of men shouting commands, and the high-pitched whine of an aviation turbine engine spinning up in the distance.
"The airstrip," I said, my heart slamming against my ribs. "The plane is taxiing."
"Move!" Marcus commanded.
We swept through the cellar, our boots making no sound on the dusty flagstones. At the far end of the vault stood a heavy, brass-studded oak door leading to the ground-floor service wing.
I turned the brass knob slowly. The latch released without a sound.
I cracked the door an inch.
We were looking into a wide, marble-floored service hallway illuminated by ornate bronze sconces. Heavy crystal chandeliers hung from forty-foot ceilings in the main gallery beyond. Through the tall French doors lining the rear terrace, I could see the vast expanse of the manicured lawn sloping down toward the paved runway.
On the runway, three hundred yards away through the driving rain, sat an unmarked, twin-engine Beechcraft King Air turboprop. Its twin propellers were blurred into spinning halos of gray water, its navigation strobes flashing crimson against the mist.
Parked beside the aircraft were two armored SUVs—the same vehicles that had rammed the federal transport on Interstate 20.
Standing on the covered stone portico, shouting into a satellite phone, was Judge Harrison Vance.
He had discarded the orange prison jumpsuit. He wore a heavy wool overcoat over an unbuttoned dress shirt, an expensive leather weekend duffel bag slung across his shoulder. Beside him stood four heavily armed private contractors wearing black ballistic helmets and tactical headsets, their assault rifles slung across their chests as they loaded two oversized aluminum flight cases into the open cargo hatch of the nearest SUV.
"He's taking the offshore servers," Marcus whispered, leveling his carbine through the cracked service door. "Those cases contain the digital keys to the entire Cahaba Protocol trust network."
"If that plane gets airborne, the case against the appellate judges and the senators falls apart," I said. "We lose the physical custody of the digital master keys."
Marcus looked at his four operators, then turned to me. "We can't cover three hundred yards of open lawn before those SUVs reach the runway threshold. They have clear fields of fire and heavy machine guns on the roof mounts."