Julian Vance knelt on the ribbed rubber floor of the front step-well.
The freezing draft cutting through the driver’s toll-slit smelled of sulfur, oxidized copper, and wet river silt. Twenty feet ahead, the cast-iron pedestal of the automated gatehouse terminal stood waiting on the concrete apron.
Above the hopper, the twin nozzles of the Heidelberg clause-ink cannon rotated five degrees downward.
“Pressure in their ink vat is at eighty pounds!” Lin Mei called out, leaning over the partition from the wheel-well bench. “The digital clock reads two forty-eight and ten seconds! They’re fifty seconds from full operational discharge!”
“What’s their valve sequence?” Julian asked, keeping his hands steady on the clear acrylic tube.
“The enforcers are turning the secondary bleed petcock,” Lin Mei reported, peering through her wire-rimmed glasses. “Once the secondary petcock vents, the master butterfly valve opens! That gives us less than forty seconds before that red sludge hits the air!”
“Mac,” Julian said without looking back. “Hold the chassis rock-steady.”
“My air-brakes are locked with ninety-five pounds, Chief,” Mac Cole replied. His weathered hands remained welded to the steering wheel and the Bendix paddle. “Coach #404 won’t move a millimeter. But you’ve got twenty feet of open air and a twelve-knot crosswind coming off the river gorge.”
