Chapter 18
"Do you hear that?"
The man on their truck jumped off the running board as Vivaldi blasted at war volume.
A massive crash shook the depot—metal shrieking, chain link screaming. Sarah couldn't see anything from inside the bin, but she felt Griff tense beside her.
"Yellow food truck," he reported. "Ten feet away."
The back doors of something slammed open. Then a voice Sarah knew—cultured, commanding, and currently furious: "Out. Now."
A shotgun boomed twice. Tires exploded.
"That's Doc." Sarah gasped.
Griff didn't need more encouragement. “Go.” He pushed her toward the opening.
They erupted from the salt. His shoulder gave out as he tried to vault over the hopper's edge—Sarah caught him, white crystals cascading off them both.
"Move." Doc's voice carried over the chaos. Another shotgun blast. "This isn't a cotillion."
Sarah half-dragged Griff toward the truck. Five steps. Four. A contractor popped up from behind a pickup—Doc's shotgun convinced him to reconsider.
They dove through the open doors. The smells hit her first. Gun powder, cooking oil, and what might have been lobster bisque.
"Secure." Griff shouted and threw the door shut.
Doc tossed him her weapon with impossible grace for a sixty-something in pearls. "Buckle up, children."
She threw it in reverse. Sarah grabbed a ceiling rail as her stomach tried to exit through her throat. Through the windshield, she watched contractors scrambling for vehicles—but Griff's chaos had done its job. Running trucks blocked everything.
"Brilliant work with the heat signatures," Doc called back, grinning. Then she shoved the truck in forward and hit the gas, threading between two salt trucks at impossible speed.
"You know tactics?" Griff sounded impressed.
"Young man, I was blowing things up before you were born."
They burst through the hole in the fence Doc had created, fishtailing onto the service road. Sarah caught a glimpse of pursuit—two SUVs had managed to clear the depot chaos.
"Company," Griff warned.
"I see them." Doc was absolutely calm, like they were discussing tea preferences. She pulled out a phone one-handed while taking a corner at fifty. "Julius? Yes, dear. Two vehicles, three minutes behind. The usual, please."
The truck's interior was surreal. Sarah catalogued it with the part of her brain that wasn't screaming—medical supplies that belonged in a trauma center, weapons that belonged in an armory, and a full espresso machine bolted to one wall.
Her mentor had turned a food truck into a mobile command center.
"You've done this before," Sarah said, not quite a question.
"Once or twice." Doc ran a red light without even checking the empty street. "Different truck, though. The last one died in Prague."
"Prague?" Sarah's voice climbed. "What were you doing in—"
"Long story. Involves the Russian mob and a very angry chef." Doc checked her mirror. "Ah, there we go."
Through the back window, Sarah saw one pursuing SUV suddenly swerve, its front tire exploding. It spun out, blocking the road. The second SUV had to brake hard to avoid it.
"Spike strip?" Griff asked.
"Julius does love the classic approaches." Doc pulled onto Route 7, suddenly driving at exactly the speed limit. "He'll delay them long enough for us to disappear."
"Doc," Sarah started carefully, "I should explain—"
"Later, dear. First we get somewhere safe, get your friend properly patched up." Doc met her eyes in the mirror. "Though I am curious why military contractors are trying to kill my former student long before dawn."
"It's... complicated."
"The best stories always are." Doc pulled through a hidden gate. "But whatever you've stumbled into, it must be significant. That wasn't a random hit team. Those were professionals."
"Stillwater Defense Solutions," Griff said quietly.
Doc's hands tightened on the wheel. "Now that is a name I haven't heard in a while. They were supposed to be defunct."
"You know about Stillwater?" Sarah leaned forward.
"Nasty group. Private military contractors with a reputation for playing very dirty. If they're involved... Well, then you definitely need somewhere secure to explain everything." She swept the side mirrors. “Julius handled clean up. Quite satisfactory. We’re not far now. You two sit back and take a breath, will you? We’ve time enough to talk once we’re stationary.”
Sarah slumped against a metal cabinet. She was soaked, covered in salt, bleeding from a dozen small cuts. Griff looked worse—his shoulder still seeping blood, his face gray with exhaustion and blood loss. His shoulder must be on fire. She couldn’t imagine how badly salt would sting.
"First aid kit under the left bench," Doc instructed. "The red one. Blue is for chemical weapons, green is for biological."
"How many first aid kits do you have?" Sarah asked, pulling out the red case.
"Seven. One can never be too prepared." Doc took another turn, smooth and controlled now. "We'll be at my McLean farm in twenty minutes. It's secure—properly secure."
Sarah pressed gauze to Griff's shoulder while he tried to wave her off. "Let me help," she insisted quietly.
Their eyes met, and something passed between them—acknowledgment of what they'd survived. Again. Her hands were steady as she worked, but inside she was trembling. They'd almost died. Multiple times in the last hour.
"You did good back there," Griff said, his voice low enough that Doc couldn't hear over the engine. "The salt hopper. Keeping your head when they were closing in."
"I was terrified," Sarah admitted, securing the gauze with medical tape.
"But you didn't freeze. That's what counts."
Sarah's fingers found the cross at her throat, closing around it briefly. She closed her eyes, lips moving in silent prayer—Thank You for getting us through. Please keep protecting us. Guide us to safety.
When she opened her eyes, Griff was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read. Not judgment. Something softer. Almost... longing?
"My mom used to do that," he said quietly. "Pray when things got bad. Said God was always listening, even in the darkest moments."
"Do you believe that?"
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. "I want to," he finally said. "Some days I want to more than others."
Sarah's hand found his—the one not pressed against his wounded shoulder. "Today’s a good day to want to."
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Copy that."
He closed his eyes, the tension draining out of him. Sarah sat quietly, careful not to disturb him until the vehicle slowed.
Doc wound down a series of sweeping residential streets, each block bringing larger, more palatial spreads.
Urban ranches with lots of zeros on their price tags.
Finally, she turned down a long drive outlined by picturesque white fences.
She stopped the truck in front of a sprawling ranch home that would have been better served with an expensive imported SUV, but Sarah well knew that nothing about Doc was normal.
"Your farm is secure?" Griff asked, professional assessment in his voice.
She aimed the truck at a freshly painted barn and grabbed a remote. The entire front wall tilted up, leaving plenty of room to roll the big truck inside. "My dear boy, this cul-de-sac is safer than the White House."
Doc parked, immediately lowering the door behind them and turned to grin at Sarah. "If anyone tries anything here, they'll have to explain it to some very connected, very paranoid former intelligence officers."
"Thank you," Sarah said quietly. "I didn't know who else to call."
"Nonsense. You did exactly right." Lips pursed, Doc studied the two of them. "Now, let's get that shoulder properly treated and you can tell me everything. I have fresh coffee and homemade scones. One can't strategize on an empty stomach."
Despite everything—the terror, the pain, the insanity of being rescued by her economics professor in an armored food truck—Sarah almost laughed.
They'd survived. Somehow, against all odds, they'd survived.
And now they had an ally who might be even more dangerous than their enemies.