Chapter 9: The Version That Broke The Laws of Physics

Why this chapter changed:

This chapter originally looked very different. During edits, my editor flagged one important problem: the physics didn't work. In this version, the attacking vehicles were able to push the Humvees across the railroad tracks in a way that wasn't physically possible. So I knew the sequence had to be rebuilt.

But once I went back into the chapter, I realized I had another problem. These men weren't there to intimidate Cameron and Olivia. They were there to kill them, and the original attack suddenly felt far too passive for that objective.

So what began as a physics correction became a much larger rewrite. I made the attackers more aggressive, the danger more immediate, and ultimately changed much more of Chapters 9 and 10 than I'd originally intended.

Below is the version that existed before that rewrite.

***

The convoy moves through Tallinn’s early dusk. The sky was the color of old concrete. Clouds hung low, threatening more rain.

Three black Escalades in formation. There were twelve of them total, nine operators and three local drivers assigned to the vehicles. They keep just enough distance to move if they have to, not enough for anyone to cut in if something locks up ahead.

The tires hum over wet asphalt, headlights smearing against the dark glass of old stone buildings. They cleared a roundabout, the city behind them, more open stretches as they moved west of the city.

Cameron sits passenger side, angled toward Olivia. She looks calm, but there’s a tell. Everyone has a tell. Her jaw is clenched, holding back tears. Her fingers are woven into each other holding on so tight her knuckles are white.

His eyes flick to the side mirror. Nothing unusual. No tails. The comm is quiet.

They approach a railroad crossing, the lights already flashing when the arms start to lower. The arms descend, red lights blinking against the low fog as the lead Escalade eases to a stop short of the tracks, tires hissing softly on wet asphalt. The rail road crossing arm feels slower when you need them up. It finally drops all the way down. He doesn’t like being stationary this long. Not here.

He unlocks his seatbelt. There’s no sign that anything is wrong. No cars following, no men standing on nearby roofs that Cameron can see. Nothing he could act on. He unholsters his gun instinctively anyway.

He looks in the mirror again.

Nothing.

Then a white van rolls up behind the tail vehicle. There’s nothing aggressive about it but Cameron notes the distance.

The white van settles in behind the rear Escalade. Not too close, but just close enough to register. Close enough that Cameron’s eyes linger. Close, but people crowd all the time. 

But then a second white van eases out from an alley behind them. White. Same make. Same body style. It enters the roadway as any other vehicle heading home at the end of the day.

He sits up straighter, his hand tightening on the door handle.

A third van follows it out a heartbeat later. Same white. Same make.

Not a coincidence.

One van. Fine.

Two. Coincidence.

Three. No.

For a moment the second and third van drive in line, one behind the other. Then the lead van drifted left first, closing the distance until it was riding beside the Escalade, close enough that the reflection of their own vehicle stretched and warped across its side, the window filled with white metal and nothing else.

The second van peeled off to the right, unhurried and almost polite. It stopped beside the middle vehicle, blocking it. The road hasn’t changed, but Cameron feels it close in the way a room feels smaller when someone stands too close behind you.

The comm in Cameron’s ear clicks to life.

“We’re boxed.”

He already knew. His body spoke first and what he felt was a low, familiar pressure behind his sternum. It was a warning. He felt it before. How people waited a little too long because nothing had happened. How he learned to act first.

The rear white van hasn’t moved. Not yet. That’s the tell. They’re waiting until the train does the work for them.

Efficient.

But that also meant the route was known by someone outside the team. They were burned. No question. Someone was feeding them the route and the timing.

“Fuck,” the driver besides Cameron mutters under his breath.

The driver eases forward, then throws the car into reverse and angles to the right, trying back out of being pinned by the lowered railroad crossing arms. But the van to the right of the second Escalade instantly pulls forward, just enough to give their car nowhere to go.

The driver glances at Cameron as he throws the car in drive, and the van to their left edges closer to them.  The vehicle settles back into place, fully boxed in. The driver does exactly what he’s supposed to do, reverse first, angle out, the kind of move you drill until it becomes muscle memory. Cameron feels the brief flicker of approval. It was the right move. They were still trapped. A local driver, not one of the team but still trained.

The driver’s hands tighten on the wheel.

The rear white van begins easing closer in small increments. It inches closer until it makes contact with the rear bumper of the last car in the convoy. It was light enough to be accidental.  The kind of bump that ends with someone getting out to yell.

Except with three identical vans boxing them in, it’s no accident. This wasn’t random. It was planned. Timed.

A voice snaps into Cameron’s comm.

“Rear contact—”

The transmission cuts out as the rear Escalade is hit again. The second hit is heavier. Metal meets metal with a blunt shove that rocks the rear Escalade forward. The white van doesn’t recoil. It stays there, applying pressure.

That’s when the train horn sounds. Low at first, distant, almost indistinct beneath the hiss of rain and idling engines, but unmistakable once it’s there. Cameron exhales slowly through his nose.

Timed perfectly.

The push comes again. Harder now. He jolts forward, hand braced against the dash to keep from moving. The rear Escalade lurches forward a full foot, suspension groaning as it transfers weight into the middle vehicle, which resists for a fraction of a second before yielding. The cars compress as the middle car makes contact with the lead Escalade. The vans on either side don’t move. Cameron glances to his right and the driver in the van is smiling.

No, not smiling. Grinning. Wide. Like this is a done deal. There’s something wrong in his eyes.  A flicker of satisfaction.

The van behind them pushes again, tires squealing briefly as rubber loses purchase, and Cameron feels the moment the rear Escalade’s driver loses the last illusion of control. The breaks won’t matter now. One more shove and they’ll be on the tracks. They’ll keep pushing until the train does the job for them.

Which meant the route was compromised. Olivia was put into the front Escalade for this very purpose. If it was timed to the train, then it was known before they rolled.

Behind them, the van accelerates and he feels the impact transfer through all three vehicles, a physical chain reaction, metal transmitting force the way bone does. The lead Escalade rocks forward and for a split second he thinks the tires are already on steel.

The oncoming train’s horn blares in the distance. Cameron feels the vibration in the cars chassis.

“This is a push kill.” Montogomery’s voice comes over through the com. “Weapons up.”

“Cover me,” Cameron says to Vega behind him as his hand closes around the door handle, already moving.

Vega grunts once in acknowledgment. A second later, Cameron hears the soft, unmistakable click of a safety coming off.

He opens the door and steps out into the damp air. The cold hits him first, rain misting across his face as he closes the door softly behind him. He keeps to  the side of the Escalade, keeping the bulk of it between himself and the space he’d just left, dress shoes slick against the asphalt. He moves slower than he’d like to prevent slipping on the slick road. Fucking dress shoes.

He rounds the front of the lead Escalade and angles down the strip of space between vehicles, rain slicking the asphalt beneath him, the smell of oil and damp metal sharp in the air. He maps angles, distance and the timing, the train horn swelling now, louder, closer, the ground beginning to hum with it.

He raises the weapon and for a second he can see the driver of the rear white van clearly through the rain-streaked windshield. Hands at ten and two. Jaw tight, eyes forward, not looking at the train, not looking at traffic, looking past it. Looking through them. Already committed.

Cameron fires once. Glass bursts inward as the round finds its mark, the driver’s head snapping back. The van lurches forward, scraping metal against metal as the Escalade in front of it jolts free of the push, its wheels skidding sideways. The middle vehicle lurches, the lead one rocking hard as the sudden release sends energy in the wrong direction.

The windows blow out a second later and the first shots come from inside the convoy, trained agents firing out of the windows, muzzle flashes strobing from the dark interiors before the vans even start opening their doors.

They’re not waiting. Good. Not a slaughter yet.

Rounds punch into the van doors and side panels. That’s when the doors on the white vans slide open and the first shooter doesn’t spray. He waits, leaning forward and then fires in controlled bursts. Trained men.

Sharp metallic cracks answering the gunfire as return shots snap back, chewing into the rear Escalades’ armor and spiderwebbing glass. The sound ricochets wildly, too close, too loud, impossible to track.

Shots ring out and the driver of the lead Escalade’s head snaps forward. Cameron saw it in the windshield — blood misting the glass, the driver slumped over the wheel. The man’s weight shifts and his forehead slumps into the center of the steering wheel, the horn blaring, an unbroken blast that slices through the gunfire.

For a second Cameron registers it, then it blends with the rest — gunshots, rain, the train — until it is just part of the noise.

The engine on the front Escalade surges, then chokes, the foot on the accelerator jerking hard before going slack. The Escalade lurched and drifted, brakes screeching as dead weight pressed down on the pedal.

A spray of gunfire breaks out and Cameron drops. A round skips off the asphalt near his foot and his heart spikes hard enough to make him swear under his breath. Too close. Sloppy.

Rounds crack against the middle Escalade behind him, sharp and close enough that he feels the displacement of air along his ribs, paint and metal flecking across the wet pavement. He moves on instinct now, body low, using the bulk of the vehicle as cover as he shifts position, the world reduced to sound and movement and the certainty that if he stops, even for a breath, he’s dead.

“Chen-” He hears Brooks shouting into the comm before it cuts out. If the route hadn’t been burned, Brooks would still be talking if he could.

He risks a glance back toward the convoy and sees the rear Escalade shudder as rounds punch through its windows, glass spraying outward in a glittering arc, fragments catching the gray light before vanishing into the rain.

Mark’s body jerks under the impact, his body briefly animated by the bullets piercing him, the movement not his own, until his body slumps hard against the door. Montgomery fires from the rear vehicle, muzzle flashes strobing briefly in the gray light of the interior, his shots force one of the shooters to duck hard, scrambling for cover instead of advancing, until another round of bullets bring him down. His body slumps forward, forehead resting against the seat in front of him.

If the route hadn’t been burned, neither of them would be dead.

The lead driver is slumped forward, unmoving, horn still blaring.

The middle vehicle is silent now, doors closed, no return fire.

The rear Escalade is nothing but shattered glass and dead weight. Through the blown out window Cameron sees Chen’s unblinking eyes staring at nothing.

There is no one left to cover him.

Alone.

Gunfire erupts again, closer now. A man breaks from behind the van to his left, moving fast, boots slipping on wet asphalt as he tries to close distance. Cameron fires once, not cleanly, but the shot catches him high and spins him sideways into the road where he collapses. He doesn’t get back up.

Another rushes out of the van in the opposite direction, trying to flank, using the noise and confusion as cover. Cameron moves, sliding back along the Escalade, shoulder scraping hard against the metal, footing uncertain for half a second before he regains it. He winces, pivots, and fires again. This time, the impact knocked the man back into the van he just got out of.

A third hesitates standing at the mouth of the van. The man waits, watching. But Cameron doesn’t hesitate. He fires and the man drops forward. Four rounds used. Thirteen left. He counts the rounds left in the magazine and knows exactly how many men he just put down for a transfer that should have ended in signatures and handcuffs. This was an escort. Now it was a kill field.

One shooter leans too far out from the van, exposing half his torso instead of just the barrel. Cameron fires and the man drops back inside, weapon clattering against the doorframe.

Another figure moves at the edge of Cameron’s vision, trying to shift position along the far side of the van. Cameron fires a shot. Misses. Fires another and the man collapses, mid run, his legs folding under him.

The train sounds closer this time. The horn of the front Escalade competes with the sound.

Cameron moves again, faster now, crossing the gap toward the lead Escalade. Rounds burst through the space he’d just vacated, loud enough to rattle his teeth. A half second slower and that would have been him.

He doesn’t think about it, the horn from the train so loud now that it rattles his teeth, the ground vibrating hard enough to feel like a second pulse beneath his own. He fires twice at the man leaning from the van, both shots clean, the shooter collapsing back inside.

Eight rounds used.

He checks the field.

The shooter by the left van is down, supine, weapon several feet from his hand, blood spreading beneath his shoulder.

The one at the rear is bleeding out, no longer moving.

The last figure he’d clocked is crouched behind the open door, weapon hanging uselessly in his unmoving hand.

He scans once more. No movement from the vans. No muzzle flash. No return fire.

Clear.

He reaches the passenger side of the front Escalade and yanks the door open. He expects return fire support and instead finds Vega collapsed mid-motion, slumped across the back seat, body positioned wrong for collapse and exactly right for protection. His weight half-collapsed on top of Olivia, body bullet riddled, blood soaking through his jacket. He’d folded forward, turning his body into a shield, taking the bullets meant for Olivia.

He was going to watch the Padres game with Vega when they got back. He pushes the thought down.

Olivia is half crouched, half covered by Vega, hair loose around her face, eyes open wide. Her breath comes in sharp, uneven pulls as she looks up at him like she’s not entirely sure he’s real.

Cameron grips Vega’s shoulder and hauls him back just enough to clear space, blood warm and slick on his hands. Vega’s weight shifts in his grip and Cameron remembers drinking cheap draft beer and Vega insisting the Yankees bullpen was cursed. For one unwanted second he sees Vega leaning back in a folding chair, boots kicked up on a crate, arguing about whether the pitcher was tipping his fastball.

They knew the route. They knew they’d stop here.

“Out,” he says, voice firm. “Now.”

She doesn’t move. Cameron grips her under the arms and pulls, guiding her out and down, tucking her against the side of the vehicle.

The train screams past, close enough that the wind of it slams into them, metal and air and vibration tearing across the crossing in a roar that drowns out everything else. Cameron feels it in his bones, the ground shuddering under his feet, the Escalade rattling hard enough that loose glass skitters across the asphalt. He can’t hear the comm. Can’t hear movement. For a few seconds, sound is useless.

Then the roar fades, stretches, pulls away down the tracks until what’s left behind is a ringing quiet that feels artificial, like the aftermath of an explosion your ears haven’t caught up with yet. Cameron doesn’t move. He listens instead for a sound that tells him it’s not over.

That’s when he sees him. A man lying on the ground by the left van, movement small enough to miss if he wasn’t already scanning for it. A hand drags across the wet asphalt, leaving a faint streak, a man rolling onto his side with more control than someone finished should have. He pushes up on one elbow, his weight shifting forward as his arm reaches.

A pistol sits just beyond his fingers, before his reaching hand closes around it, grip tightening as he brings it in, the angle turning as he starts to line it up. Not toward Cameron. Toward Olivia.

Cameron fires. The shot cracks through the quiet and the man drops, the pistol slipping from his grip as he hits the asphalt. He is still facing Olivia when he falls.

Cameron closes the distance in three steps and kicks the weapon clear, sending it skidding across the wet pavement until it stops near Olivia’s boots.

He keeps his sight trained on the man’s chest, watching for breath, for a hand to move, for anything.

No movement.

Only then does he lower the gun.

Then there is nothing. No one advances. No one calls it. No one coordinates. No one left.

Cameron stands with his back to the Escalade, chest heaving, rain plastering his hair to his forehead, as he scans the road one last time, counting bodies, angles, exits, until there is nothing left that moves.

Only then does he turn back to Olivia.

Her arms are wrapped around herself, eyes locked on the gun at her feet.

“It’s over,” he says.

He keys the mic out of habit, because that is what you do when a field is secured, when bodies stop moving, when you are still standing, and there should be someone left to answer.

“Clear.”

He waits. He keeps the transmit depressed, listening past the hiss out of habit, not expectation. He knows no one’s coming back, but his mind still runs—secondary vehicle status, medical confirmation, command acknowledgment.

Nothing comes back.

He can hear the call signs in his head in the order they should be responding. Lead. Rear. Middle. Vega. Chen. Parks. None of them answer.

Just the low hiss of an open channel, rain ticking against metal.

He runs it through once, clinically. The timing was exact. The vans waiting for them and moved on cue. If they had the crossing, they had the route. If they had the route, someone handed it to them.

That was the only answer.

He released the mic slowly.

There’s no voice telling him to hold position. Just three disabled vehicles, a dead team, and a civilian while the last of the train noise fades into the distance.

***

What changed:

• The white vans became Humvees. In the original version, the vans push the Escalade toward and onto the railroad tracks.

• In the revised version, the Humvees trap the convoy instead of pushing it over the tracks.

• A Humvee was added across the tracks, which poses an additional physical obstacle, and escape is taken away from them. In the original, the driver tries to maneuver out of the box but can’t. In the revised version, the attackers make sure escape isn’t possible when the Humvee across the tracks shoot out the tires, disabling the vehicle all together.

• The attackers were re-written to be significantly more violent and vicious. In the original, the attack is dangerous, but relatively passive once the convoy is trapped. In the revised version, the surviving shooters execute the wounded agents and drivers. Their objective isn’t implied, they’re there to make sure no one survives.

• Cameron became more vulnerable, but not less decisive. In the original, he moves through the attack with an almost superhuman efficiency, taking action almost immediately and is barely touched by the danger around him. In the revised version, he’s injured and forced to wait while the attackers move closer, acting when it gives him and Olivia the best chance of surviving. He’s still Cameron, he just isn’t omnipotent.

• The train becomes part of the violence. Originally, the train passes after most of the violence is over. In the revised version, Cameron witnesses the train killing the man who stumbles out of the Humvee.

Now that you’ve read the original…
Which version of Cameron do you prefer? The untouchable operative in this draft, or the vulnerable Cameron in the finished version?

Tell me in the comments.