Chapter 6 - The Fire and the Escape
A barrage of heavy bullets suddenly ripped through the thin wooden walls of the cabin.
I grabbed Leo and threw us both to the floor, covering his small body with my own.
Maria returned fire with deadly precision, shattering the drone's spotlight and plunging the woods back into darkness.
She shouted that there were at least ten heavily armed mercenaries surrounding the perimeter.
The smell of gasoline suddenly seeped under the gaps in the front door.
Flames instantly erupted on the wooden porch, eating rapidly through the dry timber of the old cabin.
They were going to burn us completely alive if we did not surrender.
Maria pulled back a heavy rug in the center of the room to reveal an old, rusted storm cellar door.
We scrambled down the wooden stairs into the damp, freezing darkness of the underground bunker.
The heat from the fire above us grew intensely hot as the cabin structure began to violently collapse.
Maria kicked open a rusted drainage grate at the back of the cellar that led out to a dry creek bed.
We crawled through the dirt and emerged safely behind the line of distracted mercenaries.
The armed men were watching the cabin burn, completely unaware that we had escaped the inferno.
We sneaked through the shadows and found their transport vehicles parked haphazardly on the dirt road.
Maria silently eliminated the lone guard watching the cars, choking him out with brutal, terrifying efficiency.
We loaded Leo into the back of a black SUV, and I jumped into the driver's seat.
I slammed on the gas, tearing away from the burning mountain and speeding back toward the city.
I told Maria we needed to break into the bank and steal Arthur's master ledger tonight.
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Maria shook her head and delivered a devastating piece of logistical reality.
The vault required Arthur's own biometric fingerprint and a retinal scan to open the door.
