The Young Mechanic And The Mystery Of The Red Flame Harley
CHAPTER 5: THE RIVER ROAD PURSUIT
The night wind screamed against Jesse’s face as the Red Flame Harley tore along the abandoned railway levee at eighty-five miles an hour, its supercharger whining like an enraged hornets’ nest. The Wabash River flowed fifty feet below to their left, black and treacherous under the moonless Indiana sky, while the steep limestone bluffs rose like towering fortress walls to their right.
Behind him, Pop Callahan held on with unyielding strength, his white beard whipping in the gale. The old Navy veteran shouted above the mechanical thunder: “The rail line terminates in four hundred yards, Jesse! At the old limestone loading dock! Beyond that is a thirty-foot drop into the river channel!”
Jesse’s eyes narrowed, scanning the pitch-black horizon through the amber glow of the motorcycle’s single teardrop headlight.
Ahead, Brock Miller’s heavy four-wheel-drive pickup truck had skidded broadside across the gravel levee, its high-intensity LED roof bar illuminating the railway terminus in blinding, surgical white light. Standing in the bed of the pickup, Brock and two hired thugs were leveling pump-action shotguns directly at the approaching motorcycle.
“They’ve boxed us, Jesse!” Pop warned. “If we hit that truck, we’re dead!”
“Dad didn’t build a machine to stop for bullies, Pop!” Jesse shouted back, his voice crackling with fierce determination. “Trust the engine!”
Jesse didn’t touch the brakes. Instead, he pulled back on the throttle, kicking the transmission down into third gear. The supercharger’s bypass valve snapped shut, force-feeding twenty-two pounds of compressed air into the twin combustion chambers. The Harley surged forward with an explosive burst of raw torque that lifted the front tire two inches off the gravel.
Fifty yards from the blockade, Brock Miller fired. A blast of 12-gauge buckshot shredded the wild sumac bushes beside the tracks, kicking up plumes of dirt.
Jesse swerved violently to the left, dropping the motorcycle off the railway ties onto the narrow, inclined concrete chute of the quarry’s decommissioned gravel conveyor. The sixty-degree concrete ramp was slick with river silt and dead leaves, but the wide, soft-compound rear tire clawed for traction.
The motorcycle rocketed up the ramp like a stunt machine, launching into the air above the roof of Brock’s pickup truck.
For a heart-stopping two seconds, the machine flew through the night sky. In the glare of the truck’s spotlights, the cherry-red flame paint and gleaming chrome supercharger shone like a falling star. Pop Callahan let out a wild, primal roar of defiance that echoed off the limestone cliffs.
The motorcycle touched down on the crushed limestone gravel of the quarry apron with a heavy, bone-jarring impact. The dual-springer front end absorbed the shock with a metallic hiss of hydraulic dampening. Jesse fought the handlebars, his powerful young arms wrestling the machine back into a straight line as gravel sprayed against the cliff walls.
Brock Miller dropped his shotgun in sheer disbelief, staring at the motorcycle through his shattered back window as Jesse accelerated away across the quarry floor.
“After them! Kill them!” Brock shrieked, scrambling back into the driver’s cab.
The pickup truck spun its four tires in the loose limestone, tearing across the open pit in furious pursuit.
The quarry was a subterranean labyrinth of rusted iron machinery—ten-story gravel crushers, suspended conveyor gantries, towering piles of crushed rock, and deep water-filled excavation pits. Jesse navigated the maze with razor-sharp reflexes, using the agile motorcycle to slice through narrow gaps between rusted steel support pillars where the wide pickup truck couldn’t follow without scraping its fenders.
Suddenly, from the top of the central crusher catwalk eighty feet above, a high-powered spotlight clicked on.
A blinding beam of light pinned the red motorcycle against the white limestone dust.
Standing on the elevated steel catwalk, framed by the starry sky, was Julian Croft. The billionaire had arrived via the quarry’s private executive elevator. In his tailored hands, he held a sleek, scoped hunting rifle.
A high-velocity rifle round struck the gravel three feet ahead of Jesse’s front tire, sending limestone shrapnel ricocheting off the motorcycle’s chrome engine casing.
Jesse stomped the rear brake, sending the Harley into a sliding drift behind the massive steel legs of the main sorting hopper.
“Jesse Campbell!” Croft’s amplified voice boomed through the quarry via the facility’s industrial loudspeaker system. “Your machine is magnificent! But you have reached the end of the road! The only road out of this quarry is blocked by my security forces!”
Jesse and Pop dismounted, pressing their backs against the heavy steel frame of the twenty-ton gravel hopper. The smell of hot engine oil and gunpowder was suffocating. Across the pit, Brock’s pickup truck skidded to a halt, cutting off the southern exit, while two more security vehicles arrived at the northern gate.
“Give me the titanium canister, Jesse!” Croft’s voice echoed coldly from above. “Hand over your father’s patent keys, and I will let Thomas live out his days in a quiet retirement home! Refuse, and I will execute the old man right before your eyes, and take the cylinder from your corpse!”
Pop Callahan reached into his Navy jacket, pulling a heavy brass punch from his pocket. He looked at Jesse, his blue eyes burning with calm, resolute courage. “Jesse… look at the main hopper release cable above us.”
Jesse looked up. A two-inch steel cable held twenty tons of crushed limestone suspended directly above Croft’s security convoy. And the manual release lever was less than ten feet from where they stood.
