Chapter 5 - The Setup
Red laser dots danced across Elias and Marcus's chests like a swarm of deadly insects.
"Hit the floor right now!" Elias roared as he dove behind the heavy mahogany desk.
A deafening barrage of high-caliber sniper fire shattered the office windows into a million pieces.
The bullets tore through the expensive furniture and shredded the Warden's hanging body.
Marcus crawled across the carpet covered in broken glass and pressed his back against the solid concrete wall.
"Julian just framed us for a federal murder," Marcus yelled over the continuous gunfire.
Elias quickly assessed the situation and noticed a heavy steel ventilation grate near the floorboards.
He shot the screws out with his stolen rifle and kicked the grate inward.
"We need to reach the main server room on the fourth floor," Elias commanded while sliding into the narrow duct.
"The security cameras in this office will prove Julian's men killed the Warden before we arrived."
Marcus grunted and squeezed his massive frame into the tight metal shaft behind the old man.
They crawled through the claustrophobic darkness for twenty agonizing minutes while SWAT teams breached the building below them.
The sound of heavy combat boots echoing in the hallways made the metal vents vibrate.
They finally reached a grate overlooking the prison's highly secured server room.
Elias peered through the slats and saw four of Julian's elite mercenaries deleting files from the main terminal.
"They are wiping the security footage right now," Elias whispered with intense urgency.
Marcus smiled darkly and pushed his heavy boots against the metal grate.
He kicked it completely out of the wall and dropped down onto the closest mercenary like a falling anvil.
Elias dropped in right behind him and fired two precise non-lethal shots to the legs of the remaining guards.
The mercenaries collapsed in agony as Marcus quickly tied their hands with heavy zip ties.
Elias rushed to the main computer terminal and frantically typed in a series of override commands.
"The deletion process is at ninety percent," Elias muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard.
He successfully bypassed the firewall and started downloading the original footage onto a portable drive.
The progress bar inched painfully slow as shouting voices grew louder in the hallway outside.
"SWAT is coming up the stairs," Marcus warned as he barricaded the heavy server room door with a metal cabinet.
"Download complete," Elias announced as he yanked the drive from the console and shoved it into his pocket.
Suddenly the lights in the server room completely short-circuited and plunged them into absolute blackness.
The heavy steel door was violently blown off its hinges by a massive breaching charge.
Through the thick smoke Julian Cross stepped into the room holding a detonator.
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"You always were too slow, Elias," Julian laughed as he pressed the red button.
The floor beneath them violently exploded and sent both men falling into the burning level below.
