Chapter 16 - The Decoy
We arrived at the outer perimeter of Arthur Vance’s compound just after midnight.
The estate was a sprawling fortress of steel and glass, built into the side of a steep, jagged cliff.
The temperature had dropped well below freezing, and a thick, heavy snow had begun to fall, masking our approach.
I handed my mother a thermal detonator and pointed toward the massive backup generator located on the eastern ridge.
"I need exactly four minutes of total darkness to bypass the laser grid," I whispered into the freezing wind.
She nodded silently, slipping away into the dark tree line like a true phantom.
I low-crawled through the freezing snow, keeping my breathing shallow as a two-man mercenary patrol walked past my position.
Suddenly, a massive, deafening explosion rocked the eastern ridge.
The thermal detonator completely obliterated the generator, plunging the entire multi-million dollar estate into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
Alarms began shrieking into the snowy night as mercenaries scrambled frantically toward the source of the blast.
My mother had perfectly executed the decoy, pulling the heavily armed guards entirely away from the main house.
I sprinted across the open courtyard, using a grappling hook to scale the sheer stone wall of the master balcony.
I shattered the reinforced glass with a tactical strike-pen and rolled smoothly into Arthur’s sprawling home office.
The room was illuminated only by the faint, eerie glow of the emergency backup floor lights.
I found the biometric safe exactly where Viktor said it would be, hidden behind a massive oil painting.
But before I could even approach the heavy steel door, the office lights flickered violently back to life.
Arthur Vance was sitting in a heavy leather armchair in the corner of the room, calmly holding a suppressed pistol.
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"You have your father's stubbornness, Sarah," Arthur sighed, looking completely unbothered by the chaos outside.
"But you also have his fatal flaw. You both believe the truth actually matters."
