Chapter 14 - The Gas Chamber
Claire pulled the manual handle downward with a sharp snap.
Instantly, high-pitched Klaxons sounded through the corridor, accompanied by flashing amber strobe lights. A computerized voice began an automated countdown in three languages: “Hazardous atmospheric suppression initiated. Evacuate immediately. Forty... thirty-nine...”
The guards in the corridor panicked. The two sentries shouted toward the vault, scrambling toward the stairwell doors.
Richard kicked the fire door wide open, his oxygen mask strapped firmly over his face. He fired three suppression rounds into the floor at the guards’ feet. The ricochets screamed off the marble, forcing the mercenaries to dive for cover behind the boardroom desks.
Dense white clouds of carbon dioxide blasted from the ceiling nozzles with a deafening hiss, instantly dropping the temperature in the corridor by twenty degrees. A heavy fog rolled across the floor, swallowing furniture, doorways, and sightlines.
Julian charged through the vapor, using his heavy frame to tackle the nearest guard before the man could shoulder his rifle. They crashed through the frosted glass partition of a conference room in a shower of fragments.
Richard moved methodically toward the vault, the pistol raised, his vision obscured by the thick fog. A mercenary emerged from the vault door, choking violently, his hands clawing at his throat as the oxygen was displaced from the room. The man collapsed onto his knees, his rifle clattering across the floor, unconscious before he struck the tiles.
Inside the vault, one figure remained standing.
A man in a sharp charcoal overcoat stood before the open safety deposit locker, a leather courier bag slung across his shoulder. He wore a compact tactical respirator over his nose and mouth.
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He turned toward Richard, revealing the cold, aristocratic face of Victor Vance—Marcus’s father and the chief operating officer of the Sterling board.
“You’re too late, Richard,” Victor’s voice came through the respirator diaphragm, muffled and metallic. “The original charter has already been photographed and transmitted to our Zurich server. The dissolution of Sterling Global begins at market open.”
