Read Chapter 22: The Junction Box

The ladder descended into darkness, the river’s damp breath rising to meet them. Jack went first, one hand on the rungs, the other useless at his side where the shoulder wound burned like a hot coal sewn beneath the skin. Henri followed, then Claire, then Weiss—the German engineer sandwiched between them, his breath shallow and quick.

The junction box sat at the base of a steel pier, bolted to the concrete footing where the bridge’s underbelly met the river. Corrosion streaked its face, and the wires feeding into it were thick as his thumb, wrapped in black rubber that had gone brittle with salt air. Jack clicked on a small pencil light, shielding the beam with his fingers.

“This is it,” Weiss said, his voice low. He pointed at a circular access plate. “The primary circuit runs through here. Cut the red and blue leads together, not separately. The relay will drop, and the detonator will lose its firing charge.”

Henri trained his rifle on Weiss’s chest. “You’ll do it. Slowly.”

Weiss nodded and knelt before the box, producing a folding tool from his pocket. His hands moved with practiced ease, loosening the bolts on the access plate. Jack watched the man’s fingers, looking for a tremor, a hesitation, a tell. There was nothing but steady, mechanical efficiency.

The plate came off. Inside, a nest of colored wires, each tagged with German engineering numbers. Weiss paused, his fingers hovering over the red and blue pair.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“Nothing. Just finding my place.” Weiss’s voice was calm, but his shoulders tensed. He reached into his collar—a casual, almost instinctive gesture—and pulled out a small metal object on a chain. A toothpick, used and yellowed.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. Something about the gesture was wrong. Too deliberate. Too rehearsed.

Weiss’s hand moved to the wires, and then, with a speed that belied his nervous posture, he snapped the toothpick in half. A tiny click, barely audible, and the metal object in his palm split open, revealing a sliver of brass that wasn't a toothpick at all. It was a lockpick.

Before Jack could shout, Weiss lunged sideways, rolled, and came up with a small Mauser pistol—hidden in the false bottom of his tool case—already leveled at Henri’s chest.

Henri’s rifle came up, but Weiss was faster. The gunshot cracked like thunder inside the enclosed space, and Henri grunted, stumbling back against the pier.

Jack didn’t think. He threw himself forward, his good shoulder driving into Weiss’s ribs, sending the engineer sprawling. The pistol skittered across the concrete. Jack landed on top of him, his hand closing on Weiss’s throat, but the German was wiry and desperate, and he twisted, kicking out and catching Jack’s wounded shoulder.

White fire exploded behind Jack’s eyes. His grip loosened for a heartbeat, and Weiss bucked hard, throwing him off. In the scramble, Weiss’s boot caught the tangle of exposed wires inside the junction box, ripping three of them from their terminals. A spark snapped, blue and angry, and something inside the metal housing hissed.

Jack dragged himself up, blood seeping through his uniform, and saw Weiss scrambling for the pistol. Henri was down, clutching his side, dark blood welling between his fingers. Claire was already moving—not for Weiss, but for the junction box. She grabbed the dangling wires, her eyes wide.

“They’re not cut,” she said, her voice too tight. “He didn’t disarm it. He was stalling.”

Jack launched himself at Weiss again, catching the man’s ankle and pulling him down hard. The engineer’s skull cracked against the concrete footing. He went limp.

Breathing hard, Jack knelt over him, his hand shaking as he checked for a pulse. There was one, faint and steady. He looked up at Claire. “Is the box destroyed?”

She shook her head slowly, staring at the sparking mess of wires. “No. But the wires are damaged. If they test the circuit now, they’ll know someone was here.”

Henri coughed, spitting blood. “Then they’ll know now. Look.”

He pointed upward, through the lattice of steel, toward the eastern bank where the command bunker sat. A red light was blinking on a mast above the structure—strobe, regular, deliberate.

“That’s not a signal lamp for the guard,” Weiss muttered from the ground, groaning. “That’s the alarm. The junction box has a tamper sensor. You’ve tripped it.”

Jack stared at the blinking light, his mind racing. The demolition could happen at any moment now. They were trapped beneath the bridge, armed with nothing but a dead engineer, a wounded hunter, and a wiring box that was now screaming their presence to every German within a mile.

And somewhere above them, in the cold pre-dawn, the SS officer Kessler was already reaching for the detonator.