Chapter 11 - The Falling Timber
Reyes let out a furious, guttural roar. "Get the boy!"
The chapel exploded into chaos. The lead gunman racked his shotgun, but Jax was already moving. He brought up his nine-millimeter and fired two rapid rounds. The first struck the gunman in the throat; the second took him in the center of the chest, dropping him like a sack of wet concrete.
The remaining three operatives opened fire. High-velocity rifle rounds tore through the dry pine pews, splintering the aged wood into thousands of razor-sharp shards that sprayed across the nave like shrapnel.
Jax dove across the raised platform of the altar, tackling Toby to the floor just as a shotgun blast shredded the stone angel above them, sending the headless torso crashing down into the crypt opening.
"Down! Stay flat!" Jax roared, rolling onto his back, returning fire over the edge of the dais.
A round punched through another gunman’s knee, sending him tumbling into the center aisle screaming in agony. But Jax's slide locked back with a dry clack. Empty.
He tossed the useless weapon aside and pulled Toby against his chest, tucking the boy under his broad, scarred shoulders as rifle fire chewed into the wooden altar behind them. Smoke, sulfur, and ancient dust filled the chapel, choking out the morning light.
"Jax!" Reyes’s voice cut through the gunfire, cold and lethal. "You're out of brass, brother! There's nowhere left to ride!"
Jax looked up at the ceiling. The heavy timber roof, compromised by decades of dry rot and termites, was supported by four massive cross-beams directly above the center aisle. One of the main support pillars, aged and cracked, stood three feet to his right, bearing the weight of the entire bell tower.
Beside the pillar hung the heavy iron counterweight for the long-silenced church bell, suspended by a rusted steel cable that ran down to a cleat on the wall.
Jax drew his heavy combat knife.
"Hold your ears, kid," Jax whispered.
May you like
With a savage, double-handed sweep, Jax drove the serrated edge of his knife against the tensioned cable. The rusted strands shrieked, popping one by one under the immense strain, then severed completely.
The three-hundred-pound iron counterweight plummeted into the floorboards with the force of an artillery shell. The shockwave cracked the rotten foundation, and with a deafening screech of tearing timber, the entire central cross-beam sheared in half, dropping fifty feet of cedar roof and the heavy bronze bell directly onto the center aisle.
