Chapter 8
The descent to the basement was a tense, agonizing crawl. They avoided the elevators, taking the service stairs. Clara moved with predatory grace, the heavy rifle held steady despite the child on her hip. Elias followed, watching their rear, his breathing ragged but controlled.
The hotel was in chaos. Above them, sirens wailed in the distance. The backup generators had kicked in, bathing the service corridors in a harsh, fluorescent glare.
They reached the sub-basement level. The air here was cool, smelling of concrete and ozone. At the end of the long hallway stood the massive steel doors of the hotel's secure vault, guarded by two more of Marcus’s mercenaries.
Clara pressed herself against the corner of the wall. She looked at Elias.
"I need a distraction," Clara whispered.
Elias nodded. He pulled a small, silver canister from his tactical belt. A flashbang. He held up three fingers.
Three. Two. One.
Elias rolled the canister down the hallway.
"Grenade!" one of the guards shouted.
The explosion was deafening, a blinding flash of white light that temporarily erased all shadows in the corridor.
Clara stepped out from the corner. She didn't hesitate. She fired two short, controlled bursts. Both guards dropped instantly, their armor useless against the armor-piercing rounds of their own weapons.
Clara moved forward, stepping over the bodies, and swiped a keycard she had taken from the mercenary upstairs. The vault interface beeped green, and the heavy steel door hissed, slowly swinging inward.
Inside the vault, sitting at a long mahogany table surrounded by stacks of secure lockboxes, was Marcus Vance. He was flanked by three more guards.
Marcus looked up as Clara stepped into the room. His smug confidence faltered for a fraction of a second when he saw the rifle in her hand, the blood on her clothes, and the terrified child clinging to her neck.
"Clara," Marcus said, recovering his composure, though his voice betrayed a slight tremor. "You are full of surprises tonight."
"Call your dogs off, Marcus," Clara said, aiming the rifle directly at the center of his chest. "Tell them to drop their weapons, or you die before they can pull a trigger."
Marcus stared at the barrel of the gun. He raised a hand, gesturing to his men. Reluctantly, the three mercenaries lowered their weapons and placed them on the ground, kicking them away.
"Very dramatic, Clara," Marcus sighed, leaning back in his chair. "But ultimately pointless. You can't shoot me. If you kill me, the board will see you as a murderous, unstable widow. You'll go to prison, and little Lily will go into the system."
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"You ordered the hit on David," Clara said, her voice vibrating with a lethal intensity. It wasn't a question.
Marcus didn't deny it. He smiled, a thin, cruel slash across his face. "David was weak. He wanted to give the AI to the Pentagon for a fraction of what it was worth on the open market. He lacked vision. Just like you."
