The burning bridge

The three-hour trek to the pass was a slow-motion descent into a white purgatory. The blizzard wasn't just a weather event; it was a physical wall, pulsing with a heartbeat of gale-force winds that threatened to pitch the ATVs into the unseen ravines flanking the trail. Every few feet felt like a battle for territory against an invisible giant trying to shove us off the mountain.

Visibility was a fleeting luxury. Every twenty minutes, the world dissolved into absolute zero—a white-out so suffocatingly dense that I couldn't even see the taillights of Val’s machine ten feet ahead. When that happened, Sancho would kill his engine, and I would do the same. The silence that followed was never truly quiet; we’d huddle in the lee of a rock face or beneath a heavy outcropping of ice, the roar of the engines replaced by the rhythmic, mournful screaming of the atmosphere.

During one of these forced breaks, as we crouched behind a granite shelf, I checked the straps on his large ATV. My hands were shaking, and it wasn't just the cold—it was the adrenaline of the looming finality that truly shook me.

"Sancho," I shouted over the wind, "tell me exactly how this goes down once we hit the ridge. I need the mechanics of it."

He wiped a glaze of frost from his goggles, his eyes steady and dark. "There’s an old logging bridge about a mile ahead. It’s narrow, made of cedar and pine that’s been desiccating under the ice for half a century. Under this much snow, it’s invisible, but it’s there."

I just looked at him.

He leaned closer so I could hear him over the gale. "We’re going to clear the deck enough to get you across and her ATV in the middle. I’ve got four liters of high-proof grain alcohol in the side pods of her machine here. Before you head over the bridge, I’ll pass some to you so you can pour as you go. We’ll soak the timber, position the ATV and dummy, and split."

I looked at the lifelike figure strapped to his back rack. In the dim light, its frozen, synthetic stare was hauntingly accurate. "And then?"

"We split," he said firmly. "On my signal, we light our respective ends of the bridge."

I nodded, the image of the fire forming in my mind. "The alcohol will take to the dry wood instantly."

"Exactly," Sancho said. "By the time the fuel tank on Val’s ATV catches and blows, the middle of the bridge will already have collapsed into the gorge. When they find the wreckage, they’ll see a charred frame, a collapsed crossing, and remains that the fire and the fall made unrecognizable. In this weather, no one is going to abseil down a three-hundred-foot drop to check dental records. You'll be a ghost, Deppgrl."

"A ghost," I whispered, the word lost to the wind.

The wind died down just enough for the world to turn a bruised grey instead of blinding white. Sancho stood up, kicking the crusty snow off his boots. "Let's move," he commanded. "The longer we wait, the more likely Val's 'senses' catch the scent of a lie."

We remounted. The final mile was a grueling crawl. The incline steepened, and the air grew thin and biting, making every breath a chore. Finally, the terrain flattened into a narrow neck of land. Ahead, the bridge appeared—a skeletal structure of dark wood peeking through the drifts like the ribs of a buried giant.

It was terrifying to cross. As I steered the heavy ATV onto the planks, the timber groaned in protest. It was incredibly uncomfortable to go over it with such a massive machine; every creak sounded like the snap of a bone before a terminal fall into the abyss. I held my breath, the wheels vibrating against the uneven timber until, thankfully, the tires found solid ground on the far side.

Once on the other side, I went to work as he was already working. The physical labor was a welcome distraction from the weight of what I was about to do. We used collapsible shovels to clear a path across the bridge, the wood screaming beneath our weight. Sancho moved with a grim, practiced efficiency, dousing the supports and the railing with the high-proof alcohol – the areas I missed as I was pouring the alcohol while heading over. The sharp, medicinal scent cut through the frozen air, a pungent, chemical promise of the coming blaze.

Sancho positioned Val's ATV in the center of the span, the dummy slumped over the handlebars in a terrifyingly natural posture of exhaustion. He checked the fuel lines one last time, ensuring the explosion would be inevitable.

He looked across the span at me. I had already moved to the far side, his heavy ATV idling behind me, its exhaust a faint plume in the cold. I was ready for my escape.

"This is it," he called out, his voice carrying over the ravine. "Once the fire starts, you don't look back. You drive until you hit the tree line of the fourth sector. Do you hear me, Puffin's savior?"

"I hear you, Puffin."

"On three," he shouted. I fumbled with the matchbook, my fingers numb and clumsy inside my gloves. "One. Two..."

Before he could even get to three, the weight of the moment took over. I struck the match against the strip—a small, defiant spark in the dark—and dropped it onto the alcohol-soaked wood. We both lit the bridge on our respective sides simultaneously, the blue flames racing across the timber toward the center.

The fire didn't just burn; it hissed, fueled by the grain alcohol and the decades of dry rot in the cedar and pine. The bridge burned hot and fast. In no time, the structure's integrity surrendered to the blaze. I watched for a split second as the supports gave way, and the center of the bridge vanished. I heard the ATV crash against the jagged rocks below, followed immediately by a deafening roar as the fuel tank blew up, sending a fireball blooming through the white-out.

I didn't wait to see the embers die. I hopped onto Sancho's heavy machine and throttled toward the fourth sector.

I took several detours, weaving through dense tree lines and frozen creek beds to mask my trail. Vic knew I was heading for my safe house, which meant I couldn't stay there long. It was only a stop for the essentials: food, clothing, and every drop of fuel I could carry. My body was screaming for rest, but I knew it would be a long time before I could afford to sleep.

During one of my pitstops on the outskirts of the sector, I pulled out my burner phone and reached out to Sera.

"Get eyes on Sancho," I told her as soon as she picked up. "I have his ATV, and he's on foot in a storm. He has hours and miles of rough ground before he hits his cabin."

"Where did you leave him?" she asked, her voice tight with professional concern.

"The old pass," I said. "The one that used to be hidden about an hour north north west of his cabin. It’s been burned down."

"I'll get there as soon as I can," Sera replied. "I'll bring him back to his cabin as fast as possible."

"Be careful," I warned her. "Val might be on the warpath. I left without saying a word, and she doesn't handle silence well."

Sera knew exactly what that meant; she knew that Val had seduced Vic using her inherited skills of her great-great-grandfather, but she didn't offer any platitudes. Sera just thanked me for the heads-up. We hung up, and I steered the ATV back into the storm, heading toward a life that no longer officially existed.

By the time I reached the fourth safe house, the structure felt cold, even from the outside. I pushed the door open, expecting the sterile, prepared silence of a sanctuary. Instead, I found chaos. The place had been partially ransacked. The kitchen cabinets swung on broken hinges, and the floor was littered with torn packaging. The food was all gone—every tin, every bag of grain.

I stood in the center of the room, my breath hitching in the freezing air. I did a quick sweep, desperation driving my movements. Some wood for the stove and fire place had been left behind, and a cache of fuel that I could use for the ATV was still tucked beneath a floorboard, overlooked or ignored. Most importantly, I found my medicine hidden in the hollowed-out leg of the heavy dining table.

I slumped against the wall, clutching the small vials to my chest. This was it. This was my last safe house, and I had nowhere else to go. I had used up every favor I had in Russia, burned every bridge – figuratively and literally, and played every card. I was deep in the heart of a country that wanted me gone, with a storm outside and no one left to help me get out.