Chapter 8 - The Swiss Vault
Forty-eight hours later, Clara and Alexander stood in the freezing, hyper-sterile subterranean levels of the Sterling Depository in Zurich. It was a fortress carved into the Alps, designed to hold the darkest secrets of the global elite.
Alexander had used his immense wealth to lease the vault adjacent to Silas's, giving them legitimate access to the floor. Now, they stood before Vault 404.
"The biometric key only gets us past the physical lock," Alexander whispered, his breath pluming in the freezing air. He connected a small, heavy-duty decryption tablet to the keypad on the vault door. "There's an encrypted digital firewall. I need two minutes."
Clara stood guard, her hand resting on the suppressed pistol holstered beneath her heavy winter coat. The silence of the underground vault was deafening.
"You know," Alexander said, his fingers flying across the tablet screen, "when this is over, you won't have a war to fight anymore. What does Clara Vance do during peacetime?"
Clara looked at him, watching the blue light of the screen illuminate his sharp features. "I don't know," she admitted softly. "I've been fighting for so long, I don't know who I am without the armor."
"Maybe you'll finally have time to find out," Alexander said, glancing up at her with a look that made Clara's heart flutter—a sensation she hadn't felt in a decade.
Click.
The heavy steel door groaned and hissed, the pressure seal breaking.
Clara stepped inside. The vault was small, containing nothing but a single pedestal. Resting on the pedestal was a thick, worn, leather-bound book. The Black Ledger.
Clara picked it up. She opened the pages. There it was. The exact dates, the exact wire transfers, and Silas’s own handwritten notes detailing the frame job on Arthur Vance. It was the irrefutable proof of her father's innocence. Tears pricked Clara's eyes, hot and sharp.
"We got it," Clara whispered, her voice cracking.
Suddenly, the heavy iron door of the vault slammed shut behind them. The electronic lock beeped aggressively, glowing red.
"Alexander, what happened?" Clara spun around.
Alexander was furiously typing on his tablet, his face pale. "We've been locked in from the outside. The system was rigged. Someone manually overrode the security grid."
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A speaker in the corner of the ceiling crackled to life.
"Did you really think I wouldn't notice my key was missing, Clara?" Julian Hawthorne's voice echoed through the freezing vault, dripping with malice. "Did you think you were the only ones who could rent a private jet?"
