Chapter 38 - THE TOWER OF SHADOWS
Julian slammed the butt of his weapon into my collarbone.
Pain exploded behind my eyes, blinding and white. I hit the floor hard, rolling onto my stomach as Julian pinned my shoulder down with his heavy combat boot. He pressed the hot barrel of the gun against the base of my skull.
"You should have stayed out of the school auditorium, Clara," he whispered, breathing heavily. "You were just an English teacher. You weren't supposed to be part of the audit."
"I was never just her teacher," I wheezed through clenched teeth, my fingers clawing at the concrete floor beneath me.
My right hand found the brass key where it had skittered across the floor.
"Goodbye," Julian said, his finger tightening on the trigger.
A deafening roar split the room—not a gunshot, but the shrieking scream of a high-pressure fire suppression line.
From behind the server rack, Hayes had used his combat knife to sever the main halon bypass valve. A blinding jet of frozen gas hit Julian square in the chest, knocking him off his feet and throwing him five yards across the slick floor.
"Clara! The breaker!" Hayes coughed violently, collapsing as the oxygen began dropping rapidly from the room.
I scrambled to my feet, the cold gas burning my lungs like liquid ice. I leaped toward the wall, jammed the brass key into the grounding slot between the two primary copper conduits, and wrenched it clockwise with all the weight in my body.
A sound like an artillery shell detonated inside the walls.
A massive blue arc of electricity jumped from the breaker, engulfing the main terminal in a cascade of blinding white sparks. The hum of the servers died instantly. The emergency sirens choked off.
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Total, impenetrable, suffocating blackness fell over the bunker.
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