PART 6 – The Key to the Depot
The red laser dot slid slowly across the rough wooden beams of the cabin like a deadly red spider searching for its prey. I held my breath and gripped the edge of the bench. Daniel lay flat on the floor, his eye pressed against a slit in the shutter.
"There's only one," Daniel whispered barely audibly. "He split off from the rest. He's probably following the smoke from the chimney."
I silently cursed myself. The fire that was supposed to keep us warm had betrayed us.
"What are we going to do?" I whispered back in a panic.
"Stay down here," Daniel said. He slid like a shadow toward the back door of the cabin, which led to a small storage room for firewood.
Outside, the crunching of snow sounded again. The front door handle moved slowly. The armed man carefully pushed the door open, his silenced pistol pointed straight ahead. The red laser light scanned the dark room.
The man carefully took two steps inside. He looked at the stove, where the fire was still smoldering, and then at the empty bench.
At that exact moment, Daniel lunged from the shadows behind the storage door. With a powerful swing, he slammed a heavy oak log against the man's wrist. The gun clattered onto the wooden floor and slid under the stove.
The man swore and swung a heavy punch that struck Daniel full on the jaw. Daniel stumbled backward against the table, sending the oil lamp crashing to the floor and shattering it into pieces. A small flame from the leftover oil instantly caught fire on the wooden floorboards.
The man lunged at Daniel, grabbing him by the throat. Daniel fought back, but the man was larger and heavier.
I couldn't just stand by and watch. The fear that paralyzed me suddenly gave way to a rage I had never felt before. I looked around and saw a heavy poker standing next to the stove. I grabbed the poker with both hands, stood up, and swung at the man's back with all the strength left in my old body.
The copper metal struck him hard between the shoulder blades. The man screamed in pain and let go of Daniel.
Daniel seized that second. He pulled his leg up and kicked the man with full force against his kneecap. A loud cracking sound echoed through the cabin. The man collapsed, groaning. Before he could recover, Daniel grabbed the wooden log again and knocked him unconscious.
The flame on the floor began to spread rapidly to the dry walls of the cabin. Smoke filled the room.
"Grab the gun!" Daniel yelled as he scrambled to his feet and brushed off his clothes.
I dived toward the stove, snatched the cold metal weapon from underneath it, and handed it to Daniel. He also grabbed the black notebook from the table.
"We have to go, now! This whole place is going up in flames!"
We burst through the front door into the biting cold outside. Behind us, the hunting cabin blazed like a giant torch in the night. The column of smoke rose high above the trees—a beacon that wouldn't escape the rest of our pursuers.
"They know exactly where we are now," Daniel said as we ran out of the forest toward the old county road. "We need a vehicle."
At the edge of the road, near the old railway crossing where I had stopped my bus every morning for thirty years, stood an abandoned railway maintenance van. The engine wasn't running, but a small light burned inside the cabin.
Daniel ran up to the vehicle and peered through the window. An older man in a work jacket was sitting behind the wheel, listening to the radio.
Daniel knocked hard on the window. Startled, the man rolled down the window a crack.
"I am Detective Daniel Vance," Daniel said firmly, pulling out his badge—an ID he had carried with him all this time. "This is an acute emergency. I need to ask you to surrender your vehicle to us."
The maintenance man looked from Daniel to me—an old, disheveled woman in an oversized coat with soot on her face—and then to the burning cabin in the distance.
"Arthur?" the man said suddenly.
I looked at him. It was Fred, one of the mechanics who used to service my school bus.
"Fred!" I cried out. "Please, help us!"
Fred didn't hesitate for a second. He immediately stepped out, leaving the engine running. "Get in! The keys are in it. Where are you heading?"
"To the city," Daniel said, helping me into the passenger seat before jumping behind the wheel himself. "To the central vault depot."
Daniel hit the gas. The van's tires spun on the ice before shooting forward into the darkness of the highway.
As the city lights emerged in the distance, Daniel pulled the copper key from his pocket—the one we had retrieved from the grandfather clock.
"With this key, we can open box 408," Daniel said firmly. "That's where the definitive evidence is. The original witness statement from my father, unearthed by Thomas."
He glanced at me briefly. "But there's one thing I don't understand, Arthur. The notebook says box 408 can only be opened with dual authentication. A key... and a fingerprint of the authorized person."
My heart skipped a beat. "But Thomas is dead..."
"Exactly," Daniel said, eyes fixed darkly on the road. "Which means Thomas didn't put the box under his own name."
He looked at me intently. "The box is in your name."
