Chapter 23 - The Devil's Pursuit
Above ground, the Vance estate was a raging inferno. The incendiary charges had caught the dry wood of the antique library, sending plumes of black smoke into the stormy sky.
Victor Vance stood at the edge of the crater that used to be the study, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek where a piece of shrapnel had grazed him. He looked down at the crushed bodies of his two mercenaries, then turned to the remaining four operatives, his eyes flat and devoid of humanity.
"There is a secondary access hatch in the wine cellar," Victor said calmly, adjusting the cuffs of his ruined suit. "It connects to the old smuggling tunnels. My father built a fortress down there."
"Sir, the police and fire departments will be here in less than ten minutes," the lead operative cautioned, checking the ammunition in his submachine gun. "We need to exfiltrate."
"Nobody exfiltrates until my father and my brother are dead," Victor snapped, his voice suddenly dropping in temperature, freezing the air between them. "If they reach the localized servers, the data they have will dismantle my entire global network. I will be hunted by every intelligence agency on earth, and you will not get paid. We are going into the cellar. We are finding them. And we are going to bury them in the dark."
Down in the tunnels, the trio moved rapidly. The catacombs were a labyrinth of brick archways and dripping stalactites, illuminated only by sparse industrial bulkhead lights spaced fifty yards apart.
Martha walked point, her senses dialed to maximum, the heavy pistol feeling natural in her hands after the night of relentless terror. She had gone from a housemaid changing bedpans to a combatant fighting a war for survival, and a cold, focused calm had settled over her.
"Tripwire," Martha suddenly whispered, throwing her hand up.
Maxwell and Arthur halted. Barely visible in the dim light, a thin, nearly translucent monofilament line was stretched across the tunnel at ankle height, wired to a block of C4 plastered to the archway above.
"My own security measures," Arthur muttered, wheeling backward slightly. "I rigged the tunnels years ago. If Victor's men are coming down the cellar route, they'll have to navigate the same traps, but they can bypass the central corridor."
"They're not bypassing anything," Maxwell said, his eyes scanning the darkness behind them. He could hear the faint, echoing splashes of combat boots hitting the puddles in the distance. The mercenaries were fast approaching.
"We need a bottleneck," Maxwell said, looking at the explosive charge. He turned to Martha. "Can you shoot the detonator from a distance?"
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"I can," Martha said, her eyes narrowing as she measured the angle.
"Go. Get father to the server room," Maxwell ordered, dropping to one knee and raising his rifle, aiming down the long, dark tunnel toward the approaching footsteps. "I'll buy you the time you need."
