Chapter 9 - The Plunge into the Seco
The Cadillac hit the guardrail at forty-five miles per hour.
The old pine posts didn't snap; they exploded into a shower of white splinters and rusted iron spikes. The heavy steel front bumper of the car clipped the rocky outcrop beyond the road, launching the three-ton vehicle into the empty air above the Rio Seco.
For three seconds, time inside the cabin ceased to exist.
Mateo floated off the leather seat, his hands reaching out uselessly into the void, watching his gold cufflink catch a stray beam of sunlight through the shattered rear window. He saw the world turn upside down—the brown rocks of the canyon wall rushing up to meet him, the yellow dirt road spinning away into the grey sky, the distant red brick chimneys of Calle de la Cruz remaining tiny and motionless on the high horizon.
Then came the impact.
The car did not land on its roof. It struck a shelf of soft, wet clay eighty feet down the canyon wall, the heavy front axle crumpling inward with a sickening crunch of steel and iron that drove the engine block back through the firewall into the driver's chest.
The Cadillac rolled twice down the steep embankment, tearing off its doors, shedding its chrome trim, spilling its contents into the dry brush, before coming to rest on its side in eighteen inches of stagnant, muddy river water at the bottom of the gorge.
Silence settled over the canyon.
The smoke from the crushed engine bay rose in a thin, grey spiral toward the blue sky above. High on the ridge road, the engine noise of the militia trucks faded into the distance as the men realized the vehicle had cleared the drop.
Inside the ruined, mangled shell of the rear compartment, Mateo Vance gasped for air.
His left leg was pinned beneath the twisted metal frame of the front seat. His bespoke navy suit was torn to shreds, soaked in cold river mud and warm blood that ran down from a deep gash on his forehead. His security guards lay motionless beside him—one thrown through the front windshield, the other pinned beneath the steering column, his chest still and silent.
Mateo dragged himself forward with his elbows, his fingernails digging into the wet clay of the riverbed, pulling his trapped leg free from the wreckage with a sharp, screaming snap of bone.
He collapsed onto his back in the muddy water, breathing in short, wheezing gasps that bubbled red against his lips.
He looked up through the shattered roof frame of his car toward the top of the canyon wall.
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There was no sound. No sirens. No rescue teams. No board members rushing to secure his assets.
Just the heat, the smell of burnt gasoline, and the distant, rhythmic drone of a cicada in the dry acacia trees on the ridge far above.
