Chapter 68 - The Shattered Pod and the Freefall
I sprinted toward the rear compartment of the Maybach, my boots slipping dangerously on the icy metal grating. The smell of burning rubber, cordite, and copper filled my lungs.
Inside the rear seat, the portable neonatal pod was blinking amber. The primary oxygen indicator flashed a lethal warning: *O2 PRESSURE CRITICAL — 14%*.
Through the condensation of the curved polycarbonate dome, I saw him. Our second baby boy. His skin was pale blue, his tiny chest heaving in rapid, shallow spasms, his tiny fists clenched tight against the freezing air invading the shattered pod.
"I have him!" I roared, reaching inside to disengage the magnetic locking clamps.
"The timer!" Anthony rasped from the floor beneath my feet. His eyes were wide with a manic, dying terror. He pointed a trembling, blood-soaked finger at the central console beneath the steering column.
A secondary radio receiver was flashing furiously. The digital numbers read: *00:28... 00:27...*
Catherine had deceived everyone. The six C4 charges under the suspension cables weren't set to three minutes—they had been accelerated by an encrypted pulse from her satellite uplink the moment the helicopter's skids touched the snow.
"She's detonating the bridge early!" Anthony screamed, grabbing my pant leg. "Take the boy! Leave me! Just take him!"
"Mark!" Khloe's voice cut through the hurricane of rotor wash. She was fifty feet away, firing up into the helicopter's cockpit. A burst of return fire from the chopper's door gunner struck the bridge deck at her feet, sending shards of shrapnel ripping through her jacket.
I ripped the emergency release lever of the neonatal pod. The pneumatic seals hissed open. I scooped the fragile, freezing infant into my arms, wrapping him instantly inside my thermal down jacket against my chest, right over my pounding heart.
*00:12... 00:11...*
"Khloe! RUN!" I bellowed, turning toward the French side of the gorge.
"Mark, the cables!" she screamed.
A blinding flash of white light illuminated the entire canyon with the fury of a dying star.
The first detonation ripped through the northern suspension anchor with a concussive shockwave that shattered the Maybach's windows into powder. The blast wave slammed into my back like a sledgehammer, tossing me forward onto the trembling bridge deck.
A horrific groan of tearing steel echoed across the Alps. The massive four-inch suspension cables snapped one after another like piano strings under impossible tension, whipping through the freezing air and cleaving the guardrails in half.
The entire bridge deck tilted violently forty-five degrees to the right.
The Maybach began to slide.
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"MARK!" Khloe shrieked as the two-ton vehicle slid sideways toward the edge, crushing Anthony's legs against the collapsed rail before tumbling over the brink into the abyss.
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