Chapter 8 - The Ticking Clock
The tunnel fell dead silent as I held the heavy pistol completely steady against the mayor's chest.
His armed guards froze in place, unsure if they should risk their boss's life in a messy shootout.
"Drop your weapons and unlock his chains," I ordered the guards, my voice projecting a terrifying new authority.
The guards slowly lowered their rifles and tossed a set of heavy iron keys across the floor to Elena.
She quickly scrambled up, rubbing the back of her head, and ran into the vault to unlock the real Salvador.
The heavy chains fell to the floor with a loud, metallic crash, and my true grandfather finally stood up.
He rubbed his raw wrists, looking at me with a mixture of deep sorrow and intense pride.
"You handled that perfectly, Daniel," Salvador said, picking up the fallen check from the floor.
He walked over to a hidden electronic panel on the back wall of the dark vault.
He typed the routing numbers from the check into the keypad, bypassing the secondary security firewall.
A small, hidden compartment slid open, revealing a glowing digital hard drive containing the syndicate's billions.
"We have the money and the leverage, let's get out of here," Elena urged, keeping her own weapon trained on the guards.
But as Salvador reached for the hard drive, a loud, synthetic beep echoed from the hidden compartment.
The glowing blue lights on the hard drive suddenly turned a violently bright red.
A digital timer appeared on the screen, counting down rapidly from exactly two minutes.
"The mayor rigged the drive with a high-yield incendiary explosive," Salvador realized, his face turning ghostly pale.
"If we try to remove it from the dock, it will detonate and instantly incinerate this entire building."
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The mayor began to laugh hysterically, blood dripping freely from his busted lip.
"If I cannot have the money, then none of you will ever leave this basement alive."
