Chapter 9 - The Infernal Vault
Ethan didn't waste a second. He shouted orders to the de Mercer tactical commander: "Secure the perimeter! Call emergency trauma for Clara, and get Lily and my mother out to the secondary compound!"
He untied Lily from the pew in a matter of seconds, lifting her tightly into his arms. "Daddy has to go fix something, okay baby? Grandma is right here."
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"Don't go into the fire, Daddy," Lily sobbed, clinging to his tuxedo lapels. "The bad man had a black box with numbers counting down."
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Ethan handed Lily to Margaret, whose eyes were filled with fierce maternal anguish. "Ethan, let the paper burn! It’s just property!"
"The paper contains the names of every family connected to the foundation, Mother," Ethan said firmly. "If those manifests fall into government hands or burn, three hundred innocent families lose their livelihoods. I have to disarm the charge."
Ethan sprinted across the rain-swept courtyard toward the main house. Plumes of black, acrid smoke were already billowing from the basement cellar grates. He kicked open the rear garden entrance, coughing as the thick soot filled his lungs. The heat was immense; the fire had ignited near the electrical transformers.
Pulling his shirt collar over his nose and mouth, Ethan navigated the burning labyrinth of the subterranean corridors. The walls of the old manor groaned under the expanding heat, ceiling beams crackling and shedding burning embers onto the floor.
He reached the heavy iron door of the family archive. Inside, sitting atop the mahogany desk containing century-old corporate records, was an industrial demolition crate equipped with a digital LED timer: 00:42... 00:41... 00:40...
Ethan approached the console. It wasn't a standard military timer; it was an intricate dual-circuit mechanism designed by someone with intimate knowledge of high-security demolition. He recognized the wiring pattern instantly.
It was Marcus’s signature design from their days in naval intelligence.
"Marcus," Ethan growled through his teeth.
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From behind the wall of flames in the corner of the archive, a silhouette stepped forward, holding a pair of heavy wire cutters. Marcus was covered in soot, his face blistered by the intense heat.
"I’m trying to cut the detonator, Ethan!" Marcus yelled over the roar of the fire. "Julian locked the fail-safe before he went to the chapel! If I cut the wrong line, the entire foundation collapses on us!"
