Chapter 5 - The Ambush in the Vault
The red strobes pulsed in rhythmic, sickening waves, casting jagged crimson shadows across the granite walls of the subterranean vault.
Julian moved with the immediate, ruthless instinct of a trained officer. He grabbed the metal lockbox, slammed the lid shut, and thrust it into Ivy's arms. "Get behind the inspection partition. Stay low, and do not make a sound."
"Julian, they're going to kill us," Ivy whispered, her eyes wide with terror as she clutched the heavy metal box to her chest.
"They're going to try," Julian said, his voice dropping into a register of icy, unyielding violence.
He didn't have a firearm—the security protocols at the Somerset Club had prohibited concealed weapons—but Marcus Vance was already dropping into a low tactical crouch by the vault doorway, unholstering a suppressed Glock 19 from beneath his wet overcoat.
"Two operatives on the stairs, sir," Marcus reported calmly, his thumb resting on the slide release. "Vanguard contractors. Body armor, sidearms, non-lethal orders for you, terminal orders for Miss Hayes."
"Take them out," Julian commanded.
The heavy steel gate at the base of the stairs rattled as a contractor in black tactical gear used a master override key to swing it open. The man stepped into the threshold, his suppressed weapon raised.
PFFT. PFFT.
Two muffled cracks echoed through the stone corridor. Marcus fired twice through the narrow gap between the brass door and the frame. The first round struck the lead contractor's shoulder, spinning him around; the second shattered his kneecap. The man collapsed with a muffled scream, dropping his weapon onto the damp concrete.
The second contractor retreated up the spiral staircase, shouting frantically into his radio: "Target is armed! Returning fire! Deploy the gas canisters!"
CLANK.
A heavy, cylindrical grenade tumbled down the iron stairs, bouncing violently across the threshold of the vault. A hiss of white, pressurized aerosol erupted from the canister, filling the narrow corridor with choking, blinding CS gas.
"Gas!" Marcus shouted, peeling off his wool coat and shoving it into the gap beneath the inner security door. "They're trying to flush us out into the street!"
Julian lunged forward, grabbing the fallen contractor’s dropped Sig Sauer pistol from the floor. He stepped through the curling smoke, his eyes tearing up from the chemical fumes, and fired three suppressive rounds up the spiral staircase, driving the second operative back onto the landing.
"Fletcher!" Julian roared through the smoke. "Where is the emergency service exit?!"
From a dark recess behind the safe-deposit rows, Donald Fletcher poked his trembling head out from behind an industrial electrical panel. The old curator was shaking so violently his glasses were sliding down his nose. "The... the old coal chute! It leads out beneath the alleyway behind Kilby Street! It was boarded up in the seventies!"
"Lead the way," Julian barked, grabbing Ivy by the elbow and pulling her deeper into the labyrinth of brass boxes.
Fletcher scrambled toward the rear of the vault room, yanking open a heavy iron hatch concealed behind a row of utility meters. Behind it lay a narrow, brick-lined tunnel that smelled of damp soot, coal dust, and raw sewage. A rusted iron ladder climbed twenty feet upward toward a circular storm grate.
"Go, Ivy! Climb!" Julian ordered, pushing her toward the rungs.
Ivy slung the metal lockbox over her shoulder using her torn server vest as an improvised strap, her boots finding purchase on the slick, rusted iron. She hauled herself upward with fierce, desperate strength, heedless of the freezing water pouring down through the grate onto her face.
Behind them, the vault's reinforced glass partition shattered as two more Vanguard operatives breached the smoke, their tactical lights cutting blinding white beams through the crimson gloom.
PFFT-PFFT-PFFT.
Suppressor fire chipped shards of Quincy granite from the walls around Julian’s head. Marcus returned fire, emptying his magazine into the doorway to cover their retreat, before turning and scrambling up the ladder behind Ivy.
Julian was the last to mount the rungs. As he climbed, he looked down through the darkness. Standing at the base of the tunnel, framed in the doorway of the smoky vault, was not a contractor.
It was Eleanor Harrington.
She stood in her soaking wet cashmere coat, her silver hair plastered to her skull by the rain, looking up into the shaft with eyes wild with psychotic fury. In her gloved hand, she held an ivory-handled revolver—the personal sidearm of her late husband.
"Julian!" Eleanor screamed up the shaft, her voice echoing like a banshee through the brick pipe. "You are destroying this family! Give me that box, or so help me God, I will bury you with her!"
Julian stopped on the iron rungs ten feet above her. He looked down at the woman who had birthed him, the woman who had murdered his youth, his happiness, and his soul for the sake of a corporate balance sheet.
"The family is already dead, Mother," Julian said, his voice flat, cold, and final. "You killed it seven years ago."
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With a powerful heave, Julian shoved his shoulder against the iron storm grate above, breaking the rusted padlock with a concussive snap. The heavy circular iron cover flew back, clattering across the wet cobblestones of Kilby Alley.
Julian hoisted himself out into the raging nor'easter, grabbed Ivy’s hand, and pulled her up into the freezing rain.
