The Catwalk Collapse
Chapter 09 - The Catwalk Collapse
The world violently tilted as the structural steel beams sheared apart with a horrific screech of tearing metal.
“Arthur!” Chloe screamed from below.
I lost my balance as the floor beneath me gave way, dropping twenty feet through the air. I slammed violently onto the roof of a stacked shipping container, the impact knocking the wind completely out of my lungs. My gun slipped from my hand, clattering down into the dark abyss between the containers.
Coughing, pain radiating up my ribcage, I forced myself to roll onto my stomach and look over the edge.
Down on the floor, Julian was stepping onto the passenger side of the flatbed truck, holding the black master drive tightly in his grip.
“Kill him,” Julian ordered calmly to the driver.
The heavy diesel engine roared to life, the truck’s massive tires spinning on the wet concrete as it accelerated straight toward the base of the shipping container stack, intending to smash the structural supports and crush me beneath twenty tons of steel.
I didn't have a weapon. I was battered, bruised, and trapped twenty feet in the air.
“You catch him, Arthur! Catch him!”
The echo of my own voice from yesterday—the desperate scream as I threw my body down the marble steps to save little Leo—flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning. My son was waiting for me at home. He needed a father who survived.
With a surge of pure, primal adrenaline, I scrambled across the corrugated roof of the container, took three sprinting steps, and launched myself off the edge into the open air.
I crashed onto the hood of the moving flatbed truck, my hands frantically gripping the windshield wiper assembly as the truck jolted violently under my weight.
The driver gasped in terror, slamming his foot on the brakes.
I smashed my fist through the driver’s side glass, reaching inside to grab the steering wheel, yanking it hard to the left.
The flatbed truck skidded out of control across the slick floor, its heavy rear trailer swinging around in a jackknife maneuver, slamming violently into the warehouse’s main support pillar.
The entire roof of the warehouse groaned under the sudden structural failure. Concrete dust and steel bolts rained down like hail.
I threw the driver out onto the floor, grabbed the steering wheel, and jammed the truck into reverse, pinning Julian’s side of the cab against the crushing weight of the collapsed container.
Julian was trapped in the passenger seat, his eyes wide with absolute, paralyzed horror as the metal door buckled inward, pinning his legs.
I climbed out of the shattered cab, my face covered in dust and blood, and stepped over to the passenger window. I reached through the twisted metal, wrapped my fingers around the black master drive, and yanked it out of Julian’s trembling, helpless hands.
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“It’s over, Julian,” I panted, wiping blood from my brow.
In the distance, the loud, beautiful wail of police sirens broke through the fog outside, finally bypassing the radio jammer as Vance’s tactical teams breached the perimeter gates.
