Chapter 32 - The Plunge into the Abyss
Gravity seized them with the merciless weight of a falling mountain. Planks of timber splintered like kindling, steel crossbeams whipped through the air like scythes, and the biting wind turned into a deafening roar in Gabriel’s ears.
He didn't scream. He twisted his body mid-air, wrapping both arms around Nora like an impenetrable shield of bone and muscle, tucking her head deep beneath his chest to protect her skull from flying debris.
"I’ve got you!" he shouted into her collar, the world spinning in an intoxicating blur of white snow, black rock, and twisted steel.
Thirty feet below the cliff lip, the remains of the bridge’s under-slung stabilization netting whipped outward. Gabriel spotted the dangling steel-mesh mesh harness—a maintenance safety net rigged beneath the central span. With razor-sharp instincts honed over years of tactical service, Gabriel threw his right arm out, catching the freezing steel mesh in the crook of his elbow.
The impact nearly ripped his arm from its socket. The metallic mesh gouged through his winter jacket, slicing into the flesh of his forearm, but Gabriel clamped down with ferocious, inhuman will. His left arm remained an unbreakable vice around Nora.
Above them, Arthur Ashford had caught a dangling safety line, dangling forty feet down the canyon wall like a spider on a thread, his immaculate cashmere coat ruined, his face pale with terror.
"Help me!" Arthur screamed into his lapel communicator, his voice stripped of all regal polish, raw with primal cowardice. "Vance! Extract me now!"
A deafening roar split the blizzard as the sleek black helicopter from the ridge dove through the whiteout. It hovered dangerously close between the sheer rock faces of the gorge, its downwash blasting freezing spray across the cliffs. A rescue winch lowered rapidly from the open cargo door.
At the edge of the winch line hung a woman clad in arctic tactical combat gear, her visor raised to reveal sharp, resolute eyes—Julianna’s personal head of covert operations, Commander Sarah Vance.
"Grab the line, Gabriel!" Sarah yelled through an external loudspeaker, kicking herself off the cliff face to swing toward him.
Gabriel looked down. Beneath their swaying position, the frozen river was a maze of jagged ice boulders and boiling white rapids four hundred feet down. His grip on the torn safety net was failing; the rusted bolts anchoring the net to the rock face were popping loose one by one under their combined weight.
*Ping. Ping. Snap.*
"Gabriel!" Nora pointed down. "The net is breaking!"
Arthur Ashford, seeing the rescue cable swinging toward Gabriel, drew a concealed ceramic pistol from his inner coat pocket with shaking fingers. "You will not leave this canyon alive, bastard!" he snarled, aiming directly at Nora’s exposed shoulder.
"Arthur, don't!" Sarah shouted from the swinging winch line.
Gabriel reacted without thinking. Using the last remaining tension of the net, he kicked his legs off the rock face, swinging himself and Nora directly into Arthur’s path. Gabriel’s heavy boot slammed directly into Arthur’s wrist, shattering the billionaire's hand and sending the weapon spinning into the void.
Arthur howled in pain, losing his grip on his safety line. The old patriarch slipped, his fingers scraping frantically against the icy stone before plunging down toward the lower granite ledges of the gorge.
May you like
At the exact second the maintenance net tore away completely, Gabriel lunged forward with his free hand, catching the carabiner harness dangling from Sarah Vance’s tactical vest.
The cable pulled taut. The helicopter engine screamed in high throttle, banking hard as it dragged Gabriel, Nora, and Sarah up through the blinding blizzard, leaving the burning valley and the abyss behind.
