Chapter 54 - The Crack in the Armor
The high-pitched wail of the alarms created instant chaos. The guards at the door hesitated, looking between Eleanor and the blast corridor.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Eleanor barked, grabbing a radio from the wall console. "Commander Vogel, report! Who is breaching the perimeter?!"
Static hissed through the speaker, followed by the sound of rapid, suppressed automatic gunfire and a voice crackling with urgency: *"Madame Montgomery! It’s not an external force! It’s Julian! Julian Vance was never on the transport we sabotaged in Zurich! He brought a tactical strike unit from the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service!"*
Julian. My uncle’s old confidant—the one man Eleanor believed she had permanently outmaneuvered in Vienna. He hadn't been duped; he had used our flight as bait to locate Eleanor’s secret redoubt.
"Lock down Sector Four!" Eleanor screamed into the radio. "Flood the outer blast chambers with neuro-paralytic gas! Kill them all!"
While Eleanor was distracted, Dr. Thorne backed away toward a rear emergency exit, clutching a silver hard drive containing the incomplete biometric data. Seeing my chance, I didn't hesitate. I scooped Clara into the crook of my left arm and grabbed a heavy steel oxygen tank from the overturned medical cart.
With a feral cry, I swung the tank with both hands, smashing it directly into the glass face of the main mainframe. Sparks cascaded across the room like a fountain of lightning. The primary biometric synchronization monitor exploded into black smoke, terminating the transfer sequence mid-stream.
"No!" Eleanor shrieked, turning around to see her lifelong prize go up in flames. "You stupid, wretched girl! What have you done?!"
"I’m taking my daughter home," I shouted over the blaring klaxons.
Eleanor pulled a small, silver pearl-handled pistol from inside her fur coat, her hand trembling with murderous fury. "You will leave this room in a body bag, Sarah. Both of you."
Before she could pull the trigger, the reinforced blast door to the room buckled inward with a violent explosion. The shockwave knocked Eleanor off her feet, sending her pistol skittering across the blood-splattered linoleum.
Through the smoke and rubble charged Mark, his face bruised and covered in soot, wielding a heavy iron wrench he had torn from the maintenance conduits. Behind him stood three heavily armed operators in gray tactical gear bearing the insignia of the Swiss Federal Directorate.
"Sarah!" Mark yelled, vaulting over the debris and wrapping his powerful arms around both Clara and me. "I found the armory vent! Julian’s team breached the southern power grid!"
"Mark!" I wept, burying my face into his shoulder for half a second before the adrenaline pulled me back. "The ledger is destroyed! But Eleanor—"
I turned to where Eleanor had fallen.
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The floor was empty. A smear of blood led toward an open escape hatch disguised behind an acoustic wall panel. The matriarch had vanished into the mountain’s subterranean labyrinth.
***
