Chapter 43 - The vault beneath the glass
Ethan did not negotiate. Hearing the high-pitched digital whine emanating from the foundation pillar outside, he hauled Lily toward the concealed doorway behind the library bookshelf. "Grace! Sub-level three! Now!"
Grace threw an empty magazine at the remaining two mercenaries, vaulting backward through the fractured entrance. She caught Ethan’s signal, slamming the emergency blast door control beside the inner archway. A four-inch steel reinforced barrier dropped with a heavy pneumatic hiss, cutting the foyer off from Vance’s immediate line of fire.
The impact of Vance’s men battering against the reinforced barrier reverberated through the hollow halls, but the reinforced alloy held firm. Down in the sub-level hallway, water dripped from the ceiling where the estate’s irrigation lines had fractured. The countdown timer on the security console glowed an unyielding red: 04:12... 04:11...
"The main charge is wired to the northwest corner of the foundation," Grace said, checking her remaining ammunition while assessing Ethan and Lily for injuries. "He used remote relays linked to an external transmitter. We can’t disarm it from up here without triggering the anti-tamper sensors."
"We don't need to disarm it with wire cutters," Ethan said, his fingers flying across the auxiliary console terminal embedded in the wall. He entered the frequency Arthur Caldwell had engraved onto Lily’s silver key. "My father was the chief supplier for Vance’s contractor division twenty years ago. The encrypted architecture of Vance’s command modules uses Caldwell patents."
Lily stepped beside the screen, her small, pale fingers resting on the bio-scanner beneath the keyboard. "Grandfather told me that whenever someone tried to bully me with a rulebook, I had to remember who wrote the book."
The console beeped twice. A deep amber interface replaced the corporate logo. The screen displayed a schematic of the entire estate, highlighting three magnetic demolition charges attached to the load-bearing beams. Beneath them ran a command prompt requiring two separate biometric confirmations: the senior Caldwell bloodline and the authorized executor.
May you like
"Put your hand next to mine, Uncle Ethan," Lily said, her voice steady and resolute.
Behind the steel blast door above them, a muffled explosion sounded. Vance had breached the secondary barrier on the upper floor. Heavy tactical boots began thundering down the iron spiral staircase directly above their heads.
