Chapter 8 - The Corrupt Badge
Margot stared at the surveillance monitors in absolute, silent horror.
"The Chief of Police?" she whispered, unable to comprehend the level of corruption standing outside the door.
Raphael's jaw clenched so tightly she could hear his teeth grinding together in the quiet room.
"He has been on my payroll for five years, playing the loyal politician while secretly building a case against me," Raphael growled.
"He isn't building a case; he's orchestrating a massacre," Margot realized, watching the Chief direct the mercenaries.
The Chief of Police walked up to the camera overlooking the panic room door and smiled directly into the lens.
He held up a small, sleek radio and pressed the transmit button.
The radio console inside the panic room crackled to life, filling the space with the Chief's arrogant voice.
"I know you can hear me, Raphael," the Chief mocked cheerfully.
"I brought a specialized thermite charge that will melt through that steel door in exactly four minutes."
Raphael grabbed the microphone, his voice dripping with deadly calm.
"When my men arrive, they will skin you alive for this betrayal, Chief," Raphael promised.
The Chief laughed loudly, a terrible, echoing sound over the radio.
"Your men aren't coming, Raphael, because I dispatched the entire tactical SWAT division to raid your safe houses," the Chief gloated.
"By morning, the city will celebrate the tragic death of the great mafia boss in a rival gang shootout, and I will be hailed a hero."
The radio clicked off, leaving them trapped with a ticking countdown.
Raphael began pacing the room, his mind working furiously to find an impossible exit.
"There has to be another way out," Margot said, scanning the solid steel walls of the panic room.
"There isn't, it was designed to be an impenetrable fortress," Raphael replied, frustration finally breaking his composure.
Margot looked down at her gray cardboard notebook, tracing the worn edges with her thumb.
She thought about the meticulously cataloged basement, the ventilation shafts, and the building's original blueprints she had studied for fun.
"This building was constructed in 1920, right?" Margot asked suddenly.
"Yes, my grandfather bought it in the thirties," Raphael answered, confused by the question.
"Before modern HVAC systems, high-rises used massive gravity-fed laundry chutes," Margot explained, her eyes wide with hope.
She rushed over to the wall opposite the door and began knocking on the steel panels.
"When they retrofitted the panic room, they would have sealed the chute, but the shaft itself should still exist behind this wall."
Raphael immediately understood her brilliant logic.
He grabbed a heavy metal pry bar from the emergency supply kit and wedged it between the steel panels.
With a massive grunt of effort, he wrenched the panel backward, revealing a dark, vertical shaft lined with smooth metal.
"It drops straight down to the basement laundry facility," Raphael said, shining his flashlight into the abyss.
"We just have to slide down four stories in complete darkness," Margot gulped, her fear returning instantly.
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Outside the heavy door, the blinding white light of the thermite charge began to burn through the steel.
"We go now," Raphael commanded, lifting Margot easily and helping her into the narrow chute.
