Chapter 8 - The Leap of Faith
“Stop her! Don't let her near the glass!” David roared, his manufactured calm shattering instantly as he lunged forward, his fingers clawing at the air just inches from my coat.
I didn't hesitate. I threw my entire body against the heavy, reinforced glass of the executive window, clutching Leo tightly to my chest with one arm while using my elbow to smash the heavy brass emergency fire axe against the lower pane.
Crash!
The double-paned safety glass shattered into a thousand jagged diamonds, showering outward into the rainy night air as a howling gale of wind and rain rushed into the warm office. Below us, fourteen floors down, the city streetlights looked like blurred streaks of yellow and red through the driving storm.
“Sarah, are you insane?!” Marcus yelled, breaking free from the guard’s loosened grip and diving across the desk to grab my arm. “You can’t jump! There’s nothing down there!”
“We don't have a choice!” I screamed over the roar of the wind, looking back to see David and the three guards closing the distance across the room, their faces twisted in violent rage.
Just outside the shattered window frame, bolted directly to the exterior brick facade of the Sterling Trust Building, was the heavy steel safety cage of the industrial window-washing rig—left unlocked and swaying slightly in the storm.
It was a suicidal gamble. A single miscalculation, a single gust of wind, and we would plummet straight down to the concrete alley below.
“Hold Leo!” I shouted, pressing the bundle into Marcus’s arms before he could process what I was doing.
Before David’s hands could clamp onto my shoulders, I threw myself headfirst through the shattered window frame, lunging into the void of the stormy night air.
My hands slammed hard against the cold, wet iron railing of the window-washing cage, jarring my shoulders and sending a searing shock of pain through my bruised ribs. My feet dangled in empty space for a terrifying second before I managed to haul myself over the barrier, gasping for air as the freezing rain lashed against my face.
“Marcus, throw him! Now!” I screamed, reaching back through the broken glass.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He bundled Leo tightly against his chest, climbed onto the smashed windowsill, and leaped across the gap, crashing heavily into the metal cage beside me. I caught him by the collar, dragging him down as the first of the security guards reached the window, firing a wild, silenced shot that pinged loudly off the metal framework, sparking against the steel.
“Hit the descent valve!” I screamed, pointing to the emergency hydraulic release lever on the side of the rig.
Marcus slammed his fist down onto the red emergency valve.
With a loud, groaning shriek of stressed metal, the window-washing cage dropped downward like a stone, plunging rapidly along the exterior wall of the fourteen-story tower as the wind whipped around us in a furious vortex.
Above us, small figures rushed to the broken window, shouting commands that were completely swallowed by the roar of the storm and the screaming gale.
We dropped five floors, ten floors, twelve floors, until the cage slammed violently into the concrete loading dock canopy below with a deafening thud that nearly rattled my teeth out of my skull.
We tumbled out of the cage onto the wet pavement of the alley just as the heavy metal security doors of the building burst open behind us.
“There they are! Don’t let them reach the street!” a guard’s voice bellowed from the shadows.
Clutching the leather folder in one hand and holding Leo safely against my chest with the other, I scrambled across the slick asphalt behind Marcus, diving into the open passenger door of his idling sedan just as the first bullets starred against the rear windshield with sharp, cracking pops.
“Floor it!” I screamed, slamming the car door shut.
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Marcus stomped on the gas pedal. The tires spun furiously against the wet pavement, kicking up a rooster tail of water and smoke before the sedan rocketed out of the alley and vanished into the labyrinth of the rainy city streets.
We had escaped the trap. But as I looked down at the blood soaking through my coat and felt the burning fever still radiating from my son’s skin, I knew the war was only just beginning. David owned the city, the banks, and the police. To win, we had to take our fight somewhere he couldn't touch us: straight to the federal courthouse steps.
