The Iron Wings Of Marietta And The Girl With One Shoe
CHAPTER 7: THE BRIDGE AT DAWN
The two gunmen staggered blindly along the catwalk, coughing and screaming as toxic oil mist filled the vaulted chamber. Rusk hit the brick landing twelve feet below with a sickening thud, his carbine clattering down the staircase into the dark water.
Gabe yanked the Yamaha outboard’s starter cord. The two-stroke engine fired on the first pull with a raspy, sputtering bark. He threw the tiller into gear, twisted the throttle wide open, and the aluminum skiff surged forward through the arched stone outflow culvert, shooting out into the black, swollen expanse of the Muskingum River just as dawn began to bleed cold gray light across the Appalachian ridges.
The river was running fast and treacherous with autumn run-off. Cold spray lashed across Gabe’s face as he steered the skiff downstream toward the confluence where the Muskingum met the broad, churning waters of the Ohio River. Ahead, spanning the gray water between Ohio and West Virginia, rose the towering steel cantilever spans of the Williamstown Memorial Bridge.
On the bridge deck above, emergency lights painted the steel girders in flashes of brilliant crimson and sapphire.
“Gabe!” Nora shouted over the roar of the wind and the outboard motor, pointing toward the West Virginia abutment. “Those aren’t county cruisers!”
Gabe squinted through the salt spray.
Lined across the bridge deck, blocking all four lanes of traffic, sat seven silver-and-black cruisers belonging to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, flanked by three unmarked dark-blue Suburbans with federal emergency plates. Standing at the center of the span, flanked by state troopers in wide-brimmed campaign hats and armed tactical marshals, stood Special Agent Marcus Vance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Behind them, escorting the federal convoy, Bull, Dutch, and Miller sat atop their rumbling motorcycles, their hands resting easily on their chrome handlebars, grinning through their beards like men who had just won an impossible race.
“Bull made it to the state patrol barracks on Route 7,” Gabe breathed, a fierce, tight smile cracking his weathered lips. “He used the landline at the weigh station.”
Behind the skiff, the heavy roar of a commercial high-output marine engine shattered the river mist.
Surging out of the foundry canal came the county sheriff’s twenty-eight-foot aluminum patrol boat, twin two-hundred-horsepower Mercury outboards throwing up a ten-foot rooster tail of foam. Standing at the helm, his face blistered and reddened from the hydraulic blast, one arm hanging limp in a sling, Deputy Wade Rusk steered the vessel straight toward the skiff at thirty knots, his left hand raising a heavy nickel-plated .44 Magnum revolver.
“He’s going to ram us!” Nora cried, pulling Avery down into the bottom of the hull.
Gabe didn’t flinch. He throttled the small Yamaha down to half-power, cutting the rudder hard to port, angling the skiff directly into the shadow of the bridge’s main concrete pier.
“Hold on!” Gabe roared.
As the massive patrol boat bore down on them, its steel prow slicing the water like a knife, Gabe killed the engine and threw his weight against the tiller. The light aluminum skiff spun ninety degrees, slipping neatly into the narrow six-foot gap between the bridge pier and the timber fender pilings.
Rusk, moving at blinding speed with impaired vision, saw the massive gray wall of concrete an instant too late.
He wrenched the wheel, but the heavy boat’s momentum was unstoppable. The bow slammed into the reinforced concrete pier with a cataclysmic explosion of fiberglass, aluminum, and shattered Plexiglas. The impact threw Rusk forward through the windscreen onto the wooden fenders, his revolver flying into the river depths.
The sheriff’s patrol boat spun out, taking on water as its engines died with a sickening hiss.
High above, a federal megaphone boomed across the river:
“Wade Rusk! Do not move! You are surrounded by federal marshals and the Ohio State Highway Patrol! Keep your hands where we can see them!”
Rusk lay groaning on the splintered timbers of the fender, battered, drenched, and defeated, as two state patrol tactical zodiacs roared across the water to slap heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.
Ten minutes later, the aluminum skiff bumped gently against the concrete steps of the Marietta Riverfront boat launch.
A dozen state troopers and federal agents stood formed in a solemn, respectful corridor along the stone landing. As Gabe stepped onto the concrete, carrying Avery in his arms, the little girl was wrapped in a warm, dry wool blanket brought by a state police paramedic.
Special Agent Vance stepped forward, his suit coat snapping in the river wind. He looked at the waterproof satchel in Gabe’s hand, then down at the little girl whose bare foot was now neatly bandaged and whose oversized sneaker rested securely under Nora’s arm.
“Mr. Mercer,” Agent Vance said, extending a firm, respectful hand. “Your men handed us the dispatch logs twenty minutes ago. We’ve already secured the county records vault and placed the sheriff under federal arrest. You kept this child alive against the entire county machine.”
Gabe shook the agent’s hand once—a hard, solid grip. “Calvin Lane kept her alive. Make sure the papers tell the truth about him.”
“Every word of it,” Vance promised.
Gabe knelt down on the stone pier as Nora knelt beside him. Avery looked up from the woolen blanket. The terror that had shadowed her blue eyes for days had vanished, replaced by an exhausted, peaceful clarity.
From inside the pocket of her faded blue dress, Avery pulled a small silver chain holding two tarnished military dog tags—the ones Calvin Lane had worn during his service alongside Gabe in the motor pool years ago.
With small, careful hands, Avery reached up and slipped the cold silver chain over Gabe Mercer’s head, resting the tags against the iron wings embroidered on his leather cut.
“Daddy said you would be my family now,” Avery whispered softly, her small arms wrapping tightly around the mechanic’s neck. “He said you never leave anyone behind.”
Gabe closed his eyes, his thick, scarred arms holding the girl close against his chest as the morning sun finally broke through the river fog, bathing the Muskingum, the old foundry, and the iron wings of Marietta in brilliant, unyielding golden light.
