Chapter 8 - Smoke and Mirrors
""Mask!"" Vincent shouted, tearing his own wool scarf from his neck, soaking it with water from his tactical canteen, and tying it securely over Leo’s nose and mouth.
The acrid, stinging gas filled the crypt within seconds, blinding and choking them. Above, the sound of heavy hydraulic drills tearing through the church floor echoed like thunder. Julian’s private strike team wasn't waiting for police protocol; they had traced the beacon or anticipated the sanctuary entirely.
Vincent grabbed the hard drive, Clara's dossier, and shoved them into his interior pockets. He hoisted Leo onto his back. ""Hold on around my neck! Do not let go, no matter what happens!""
Leo locked his arms around Vincent's neck, burying his face against Vincent’s shoulder to avoid the biting smoke.
Vincent drew the 9mm pistol. He knew he couldn't go back up the chute, and the secret entrance they had used was undoubtedly surrounded. But the ancient church subterranean systems were interconnected with the ancient aqueducts of Paris. At the rear of the knight's tomb lay an old drainage grate leading toward the sewer main along the Rue de Vaugirard.
Vincent kicked the corroded iron grate. The metal bent, but held.
Above, a section of the vaulted ceiling collapsed in a shower of stone dust and shattered plaster. Two men wearing full tactical gear and advanced gas masks rappelled down heavy nylon ropes, landing squarely on either side of the sarcophagus.
Vincent didn't wait for them to acquire targets in the blinding smoke. He fired three rapid shots into the chest of the left operative, dropping him instantly, then spun and fired his remaining rounds into the second man's shoulder.
The second operative stumbled back against the tomb, dropping his weapon, but lunged forward with a combat knife drawn.
Vincent sidestepped the blade, catching the man's wrist, twisting it brutally until the bone cracked, and drove his knee into the man's exposed ribs. The operative collapsed with a strangled wheeze. Vincent ripped the gas mask off the fallen soldier and shoved it over Leo's face.
""Breathe, Leo!"" Vincent commanded as the child gasped for fresh air through the filter.
Vincent grabbed the dead soldier's heavy tactical sledgehammer from his assault harness, swung it with the full weight of his aristocratic fury, and shattered the rusted drainage grate into fragments.
""Through! Now!""
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Vincent pushed Leo into the low, running water of the aqueduct pipe, diving in immediately behind him just as a fresh squad of assailants descended through the ceiling, their automatic rifles spraying the darkness with deafening fury.
The rushing current caught them both, dragging them through the narrow stone pipe into the subterranean runoff systems beneath the Latin Quarter.
