Chapter 75
The subterranean corridor exploded into violence as a shaped thermite charge blew the secondary security grating off its hinges. Acrid white smoke and pulverized drywall billowed into the vault. A squad of ten black-clad mercenaries, equipped with panoramic night-vision goggles and suppressed submachine guns, flooded through the breach like wraiths.
"Suppressing fire!" Dante roared, leaning out from behind the pillar.
His sidearm barked with rhythmic, terrifying precision. Two mercenaries collapsed to the marble floor before their weapons could level, hollow-point rounds finding the seams in their tactical body armor. Dante moved with the devastating, liquid grace of an apex predator in his natural habitat. He did not cower; he advanced through the blinding smoke, using an overturned brass table as kinetic cover, eliminating a third shooter with a point-blank double-tap to the chest.
The mercenaries retaliated with heavy automatic fire, chewing through the ornate woodwork and shattering the safety-deposit boxes into twisted metal ribbons.
Maya remained low beside Matteo, her breathing controlled despite the deafening roar of ricocheting lead. When a mercenary broke through the smoke to flank Matteo’s terminal, Maya didn't scream. Drawing a compact 9mm pistol from her coat, she fired two steady shots into the gunman’s knee, throwing him off balance just as a DIA agent finished him with a clean shot.
"Data transfer is at ninety percent!" Matteo yelled over the gunfire, his scarred face illuminated by the blue glare of the laptop. "I need thirty seconds, Boss!"
"You have twenty!" Dante shouted back.
He vaulted over a shattered concrete barrier, closing the distance on the two remaining mercenaries. Parrying the barrel of an assault rifle with his forearm, Dante drove a vicious elbow into the first operative’s windpipe, fracturing the cartilage, and spun the man’s limp body around to absorb a hail of friendly fire from the second mercenary. In a fluid motion, Dante dropped the human shield and fired a single round through the final shooter's visor.
"Upload complete!" Matteo slammed the laptop shut, securing the quantum drive in an armored case. "The entire file is sitting on the server of the International Criminal Court in The Hague!"
"Fall back through the bank’s subterranean utility tunnels!" Dante ordered, grabbing Maya’s hand and pulling her close.
They sprinted through the labyrinthine maintenance channels beneath Vienna, wading through icy runoff until they breached an access hatch behind the Vienna State Opera, where Austrian federal tactical teams were already waiting to secure their perimeter.
Inside the armored transport, Dante pulled Maya into a crushing embrace, his chest heaving. He inspected her face frantically. "Are you hurt?"
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"I’m whole, Dante," Maya breathed, her hands cupping his face, brushing soot from his sharp cheekbones. She managed a faint, defiant smile. "I told you: we fight together."
Dante looked at her, his pale gray eyes burning with an awe that bordered on reverence. "Then let's finish this war where their masters can see it."
