Chapter 15 - The Fire Suppression Protocol
Panic threatened to completely overwhelm me as the reality of our situation set in. We were sealed inside a titanium tomb seventy feet below the streets of Geneva, with a tactical death squad currently riding the elevator down to execute us. Florence immediately dropped her professional demeanor, frantically scanning the massive metal walls of the vault for any hidden maintenance panels or structural weaknesses.
I shoved the heavy leather ledger into my briefcase, gripping the handle tightly. I told Florence to step away from the main door. I knew from my decades in commercial construction that high-security underground vaults were legally required to have an emergency fire suppression system. The system worked by rapidly sucking all the oxygen out of the room to kill a fire, but to prevent the pressure from imploding the room, there had to be an exhaust vent leading to the surface.
I looked up at the ceiling and spotted a large, reinforced steel grate near the back corner of the room. It was secured by four heavy industrial bolts.
The sound of the elevator chiming echoed through the thick metal door. The mercenaries had arrived in the anteroom. I could hear them attaching magnetic explosive charges to the locking mechanism of the vault door, preparing to blow it wide open.
I grabbed a heavy titanium safety box from the wall, using all my remaining strength to smash it against the bolts holding the exhaust grate in place. The metal sparked and groaned under the heavy impacts. Florence joined me, using the steel heel of her expensive shoe to desperately pry the bent metal away from the concrete ceiling.
A massive, concussive explosion violently shook the entire room, knocking us both flat onto the cold floor. The three-foot-thick vault door was blown partially off its hinges, thick smoke pouring into the room as three heavily armed mercenaries stepped through the breach. They raised their suppressed assault rifles, their tactical lasers cutting through the dust directly toward us.
I didn't hesitate. I pulled my 9mm pistol and fired three blind shots toward the doorway, forcing the mercenaries to briefly duck behind the ruined steel door for cover. In that crucial second, Florence managed to kick the damaged exhaust grate completely loose.
I grabbed her waist and boosted her up into the dark, narrow ventilation shaft. The mercenaries returned fire, bullets sparking viciously off the titanium boxes just inches from my head. I grabbed the edge of the shaft and pulled myself up with a surge of pure adrenaline, kicking the heavy grate back down perfectly to block the entrance.
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We crawled frantically through the claustrophobic darkness of the exhaust tunnel as the mercenaries cursed and fired blindly into the ceiling below us. The shaft angled steeply upward, tearing our expensive suits and bruising our knees against the rough metal. We climbed for ten agonizing minutes until we hit a heavy metal louver blocking the exit.
I kicked the louver out into the freezing morning air. We tumbled out of the exhaust vent and onto the snowy roof of an adjacent commercial building, completely covered in dust and grease. I clutched the briefcase tightly against my chest, ensuring the master ledger was safe. We had survived the trap, but now we had to get the evidence out of Switzerland before Sterling’s men locked down the entire city.
