6. The Weight We Carry

The Greyhound station had been dead for twenty years, and it looked it.

Liam crouched behind a rusted dumpster in the alley across the street, studying the building through a pair of binoculars he'd lifted from an unlocked truck at the edge of town. The station was a low-slung art deco relic from the 1940s, its once-elegant curves now crumbling under decades of neglect. The windows were boarded, the front doors chained, the ticket counter visible through a gap in the plywood like a museum exhibit of a world that no longer existed.

Port Laramie spread out around it — a city of sixty thousand souls that had once been the rail hub of the entire Cascadian interior. The rail yard was still there, but the trains were automated now, driverless chains of freight cars that rumbled through without stopping. The warehouses that lined the south side had been converted into artist lofts and tech incubators, the kind of redevelopment that looked like progress but felt like erasure.

Ezra knelt beside him, his breath misting in the pre-dawn cold. "See anything?"

"Two men in an unmarked van, parked behind the warehouse on the east side. One on the roof of the old mill across the street — I caught a reflection off his scope a minute ago. And there's a woman in a dark sedan at the end of the block who hasn't moved since we got here." Liam lowered the binoculars. "It's Vega. She's got the place surrounded."

"Then Helen's in there? As bait?"

"Maybe. Or maybe Helen's already dead and the whole thing was a setup from the start." Liam's jaw tightened. "She sounded wrong on the phone. Too rehearsed. Like she was reading from a script."

Ezra leaned back against the alley wall, his face pale with exhaustion and something deeper — the hollow look of a man who'd been betrayed by everyone he'd ever trusted. "We could still go in. Create a diversion, draw them off, see if she's really in there."

"And if she's not? If it's just an empty building full of federal agents waiting to put bullets in our heads?"

"Then we're dead, and Pannox wins." Ezra's voice was flat. "But at least we'll know we tried."

Liam turned to look at him. The kid was serious. He was sitting in a freezing alley in a city that didn't know his name, hunted by a corrupt marshal and a private army, carrying evidence that could bring down one of the most powerful corporations in the country — and he was ready to walk into an obvious trap because some part of him still believed in the possibility of rescue.

It was either the bravest thing Liam had ever seen or the most foolish. He couldn't decide which.

"We're not going in," Liam said. "Not like this. Not without a plan."

"Then what do you suggest? We can't run forever. The court date is in two days. If we don't get this drive to someone who can crack the encryption, everything we've done is for nothing."

Liam didn't answer immediately. He was thinking about the map in his head — the geography of Port Laramie, which he'd studied on the long walk from the truck stop. The Greyhound station was in the old industrial district, a maze of abandoned factories and empty lots. Vega had chosen it because it was isolated, easy to control. But isolation cut both ways. If they could draw her forces into a chase through the ruins, they might be able to separate her from her backup.

"We need a car," he said. "And we need to find Helen before Vega does. The real Helen, if she's still alive."

"How do we find her? Her office was raided, her phones are tapped, her contacts are probably all compromised."

Liam pulled the crumpled note from his pocket again. Helen's handwriting, the words she'd written before everything went wrong. Burn this note after reading. She'd been paranoid even then, and that paranoia had probably saved her life.

"There's a phone number on this note. She said to call it at noon or midnight. The number she gave us at the truck stop was different — that was the trap. But this one..." He studied the digits. "This is a Port Laramie area code. It's probably her real burner phone, the one she uses for emergencies. If we can reach her before Vega does, maybe we can set up a real meeting."

"And if Vega's already found her?"

"Then we're on our own."

They retreated from the alley, moving silently through the pre-dawn streets. Port Laramie was beginning to stir — delivery trucks rumbling toward the commercial districts, early-shift workers shuffling toward bus stops, the city's homeless population emerging from doorways and underpasses to face another day of invisibility. Nobody looked at two men in worn jackets and muddy boots. They were just part of the landscape, another pair of drifters in a city full of them.

They found a diner near the rail yard — a greasy spoon called Maddie's that had been serving breakfast since before the war. The waitress was a woman in her seventies with a tattoo on her forearm that had faded to a blue smudge, and she poured coffee without asking if they wanted it. The clock on the wall read 5:47 AM.

"We've got six hours until noon," Liam said, wrapping his hands around the coffee cup. "We need to stay off the streets until then. Vega's people will be checking bus stations, train depots, anywhere two fugitives might try to leave town."

Ezra was staring into his coffee, his reflection a distorted shadow on the dark surface. "I keep thinking about Silas. Whether he made it out of the lookout alive. Whether Lorna's okay. Whether anyone else is going to die because of something I started."

"You didn't start this. Pannox started it, thirty years ago, when they buried the first barrel of toxic waste and lied about it."

"I know that. Logically, I know that." Ezra looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion and grief. "But logic doesn't help. I keep seeing their faces. Marcus Cole, going to prison for something he didn't do. Jack Morrow, dead in a motel room. My father, wasting away in a hospital bed, apologizing for sins that weren't his to carry."

Liam was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I see faces too. Seven of them, in the street of a village I can't pronounce. I don't know their names. I don't know if they were innocent or guilty. But I see them every night when I close my eyes."

"How do you live with it?"

"I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out." Liam drained his coffee and signaled the waitress for a refill. "But I know that dying in a shootout with Vega isn't going to make the faces go away. And it's not going to save the next town Pannox poisons, or the next kid who gets sick from drinking contaminated water."

Ezra didn't respond. He sat in silence, watching the morning light creep through the diner's grimy windows. Outside, the city was waking up, a million people going about their lives with no idea that the fate of the entire Cascadian energy industry was being decided in the alleys and abandoned buildings around them.

At eleven-thirty, they left the diner and walked to a pay phone outside a laundromat three blocks away. The street was empty, the laundromat's neon sign buzzing in the grey November light. Liam fed quarters into the slot and dialed the number from Helen's note.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.

On the fourth ring, a woman's voice answered. "Who is this?"

"It's Carter. The welder. I'm with Shaw. We're in Port Laramie."

A long pause. When Helen spoke again, her voice was different from the night before — more raw, less controlled. "Prove it. Tell me something only the real Carter would know."

Liam thought for a moment. "The first time we spoke on the radio, you told Ezra you'd been tracking Vega for two years. You said she was connected to three suspicious deaths and the FBI wouldn't touch her. You said her friends were in the Justice Department."

Another pause. Then Helen let out a breath that was almost a sob. "Thank God. I thought you were dead. I thought Vega had gotten to you."

"She tried. She set a trap at the Greyhound station. We didn't fall for it."

"That was her. I swear to you, that wasn't me. They raided my apartment this morning — I barely got out before they kicked down the door. They must have found something with my contact information, one of my backup numbers. That's how they set up the trap."

Liam felt a knot of tension loosen in his chest. Helen was alive. She wasn't the one who'd betrayed them. "Where are you now?"

"I'm at a friend's apartment in the Ironbrook neighborhood. It's not safe — they're probably watching all my known associates — but I didn't have anywhere else to go." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I have someone who can crack the encryption. A data analyst I've worked with before. Her name is Priya Desai. She used to do forensic accounting for the Justice Department before she quit over ethical concerns. She's been helping me track the bribery case for six months."

"Can you bring her to us?"

"Where?"

Liam looked at Ezra, who was listening with his ear pressed to the receiver. Ezra mouthed something — a name, a location.

"The old railroad bridge over the Poisonwood," Liam said. "The one that crosses into the old Greenwood switching yard. It's been abandoned since the 1990s. We'll meet you there at sunset."

"The railroad bridge. I know it." Helen's voice steadied. "We'll be there. And Carter? Be careful. Vega isn't just a hired gun. She's a true believer. She thinks she's saving the world by destroying people like us."

"I know," Liam said. "That's what makes her dangerous."

He hung up the phone and turned to Ezra. The younger man was staring at him with an expression that was hard to read — something between hope and suspicion.

"You believe her?" Ezra asked.

"I believe the woman on the phone just now was the real Helen. The one at the truck stop was either an impersonator or a recording. Vega probably got access to her voice files from the Cascadian Independent's servers."

"Or she's working with Vega and this is another trap."

"It could be. But we've got nothing else. No contacts, no resources, no backup. Helen's the only person who can crack the encryption and get the story out before the court rules. We have to take the chance."

Ezra nodded slowly. "And if it is a trap?"

"Then we fight. And we make sure the drive doesn't fall into Vega's hands, even if we don't survive."

They spent the afternoon moving through the city, staying off main streets and avoiding security cameras. Port Laramie was a city of layers — the gleaming glass towers of the revitalized downtown giving way to the crumbling brick of the old industrial districts, which in turn gave way to the abandoned infrastructure of the city's forgotten past. The railroad bridge was part of that past, a rusted iron structure that spanned the Poisonwood River at a point where the water ran grey and sluggish, carrying the toxins of a century of industry downstream.

They reached the bridge at sunset. The sky was a blaze of orange and purple, the river a dark ribbon winding through the city's underbelly. The bridge itself was a skeletal thing, its wooden ties rotted away, its iron beams pitted with rust. It hadn't carried a train in decades, and the switching yard on the far side was a graveyard of boxcars and flatbeds, their paint faded to ghostly pastels.

Liam and Ezra found cover behind an abandoned boxcar near the bridge's eastern approach. They had a clear view of the bridge and the yard beyond. If Helen brought company, they'd see them coming.

"You should let me carry the drive," Ezra said suddenly.

Liam turned to look at him. "Why?"

"Because if this is a trap, you're the better fighter. You hold them off, I run. I know the city better than you — I spent a summer here in college, working at a community organizing nonprofit. I know places to hide."

"And if it's not a trap?"

"Then it doesn't matter who carries the drive." Ezra met his eyes. "But I've been thinking about what you said. About the faces you see. About living with the things you can't take back. You've got a daughter, Liam. You've got someone to go home to. I don't. If one of us has to die to get this drive to Helen, it should be me."

Liam stared at him. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Maybe. But it's the truth."

Before Liam could respond, a figure appeared on the far side of the bridge — a woman in a dark coat, her face half-hidden by a hood. She was alone, walking with the careful, deliberate gait of someone who knew she was being watched.

"Stay here," Liam said. He stood up and walked toward the bridge, his hand resting on the pistol at his back.

The woman stopped at the midpoint of the bridge, and as Liam approached, she pulled back her hood. Helen Dorran was younger than he'd expected — mid-thirties, with sharp features and dark eyes that had seen too much. Her hair was pulled back in a hasty ponytail, and there was a bruise on her cheek that she hadn't bothered to cover.

"You came," she said. Her voice was the same one from the phone — raw, tired, but genuine.

"You said you had someone who could crack the encryption."

"I do. She's waiting in a car on the other side of the yard. I wanted to make sure it was really you before I brought her out." Helen studied his face. "You look like hell."

"So do you."

She almost smiled. "I've been running for three days. Vega's people have been on me since the raid. They took everything — my files, my laptop, my notes. Years of work, gone in an hour. But they didn't get the most important thing."

"What's that?"

"The source who gave me the bribery evidence in the first place. A clerk in the Justice Department who'd been watching Marcus Thorne cover up Vega's operations for years. He's the one who sent me the emails and bank records. He's still inside, still feeding me information. And he says Thorne is panicking. The court date is accelerating, and the justice who's supposed to rule on the pipeline case is getting cold feet. If we can release the evidence before the oral arguments start, there's a chance he'll recuse himself."

Liam felt a surge of hope that he didn't dare trust. "Then let's do it. Let's crack the encryption and end this."

Helen nodded and turned to signal toward the far side of the yard. A moment later, a second figure emerged from the shadows — a woman in her forties with glasses and a laptop bag slung over her shoulder. Priya Desai. The forensic accountant who'd quit the Justice Department.

They met in the center of the bridge, the four of them — Liam, Ezra, Helen, and Priya — standing in the dying light of a November sunset on a rusted span over poisoned water.

"Give me the drive," Priya said. Her voice was calm, professional, the voice of someone who'd spent years dealing with sensitive data. "I brought a portable decryption rig. If the encryption is standard corporate-grade, I can crack it in a few hours. If it's military-grade, it might take longer."

Liam reached into his jacket and pulled out the slim metal case. He'd carried it for three weeks, through forests and mountains and mine tunnels, past bullets and explosions and the deaths of men he'd never known. It felt impossibly heavy in his hand.

He handed it to Priya.

And that was when the first shot rang out.

It came from the far side of the yard — a rifle crack that echoed off the iron beams and the rusted boxcars. Priya stumbled, a red stain blooming on her shoulder, and the drive slipped from her fingers and skittered across the bridge's metal grating.

"Get down!" Liam shouted, drawing his pistol. He grabbed Helen and pulled her behind a support beam, scanning the yard for the source of the shot. Ezra had already thrown himself over Priya, shielding her body with his own, his hand reaching for the drive that lay just out of reach.

Another shot, closer now, sparking off the iron beam beside Liam's head.

"They followed you," he said to Helen. "Vega's people."

"No. They couldn't have. I was careful."

"Then who's shooting at us?"

The answer came a moment later, in the form of a voice that wasn't Vega's — a man's voice, hard and cold, carrying across the yard.

"Carter! Shaw! This is Moreau. I've been tracking you since Greenwood. Hand over the drive, and I'll let the women live."

Moreau. The fixer. The one who'd buried a pipeline worker in a strip mine. The one who answered to no one but the highest levels of Pannox's corporate security division.

Liam looked at Ezra, who was still stretched out on the bridge grating, his fingers inches from the drive. Their eyes met, and in that moment, Liam understood what Ezra had been trying to tell him back at the boxcar. About sacrifice. About having someone to go home to.

"Take it," Liam said. "Take the drive and go. I'll hold them off."

"I'm not leaving you."

"You don't have a choice. Get Priya to safety. Crack the encryption. Get the story out." Liam chambered a round. "Go, Ezra. Now."

Ezra grabbed the drive and hauled Priya to her feet. Helen was already moving toward the eastern end of the bridge, pulling the wounded woman with her. Ezra hesitated for one more moment, looking back at Liam with an expression that was equal parts gratitude and grief.

Then he turned and ran.

Liam stood alone on the bridge, the pistol heavy in his hand, the river rushing below him. Moreau's men were advancing through the yard — he could see their shadows moving between the boxcars, three, maybe four of them. Professionals, moving with the coordinated efficiency of men who'd done this before.

He fired two shots toward the nearest shadow, forcing them to take cover. The gunfire echoed across the water, and somewhere in the distance, a train whistle sounded — a long, mournful note that seemed to hang in the twilight air.

He wasn't going to survive this. He knew that with a clarity that was almost peaceful. But if he could buy Ezra enough time to get the drive to Priya, if he could give them a chance to crack the encryption and release the evidence before the court ruled, then maybe it would be worth it. Maybe the faces would finally stop.

He fired again. The shadows kept coming.

And then, from the eastern end of the bridge, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

A woman's voice. Vega's voice.

"Carter. Put down the weapon. You're surrounded."

He turned. Vega was standing at the bridge's eastern approach, blocking the path Ezra had taken. Behind her, two deputies had Ezra in handcuffs, the drive still clutched in his fist. Helen and Priya were on their knees, their hands behind their heads.

Moreau's men emerged from the yard and took up positions around the bridge. Vega walked toward Liam, her rifle held loosely at her side, her expression unreadable.

"You put up a good fight," she said. "But this is over. Hand me the weapon, and I'll make sure your daughter knows you died with honor."

Liam looked at Ezra, who was staring at him with an expression of pure despair. The kid had been right — it had been a trap. But not the one they'd expected. Vega had been working with Moreau all along, playing both sides against the middle, waiting for the moment when they'd all converge on the same location.

He lowered the pistol.

But before Vega could take it, another sound cut through the twilight — the roar of an engine, growing louder. A pickup truck, its headlights off, barreling down the railroad tracks from the north. It crashed through the fence at the edge of the yard and skidded to a stop on the bridge, its doors flying open.

Silas Creed stepped out of the driver's seat, his Remington rifle raised. His grey beard was streaked with blood, and his left arm was in a makeshift sling, but his eyes were as sharp as winter ice.

"You didn't think I'd let you have all the fun, did you?" he said to Liam.

And then the shooting started.