Chapter 20 - The Spark in the Dark
"Nobody move," Jonah’s voice came out of the dark, calm, low, and perfectly centered.
I felt his arm instantly sweep across my front, pulling me behind his broader frame until my back touched the solid zinc table. In the next second, the sharp, white beam of his pocket inspection torch cut through the gloom, casting long, stark shadows across the rows of metal shelving.
"Clara?" I called out, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"I’m right by the stairwell," Clara whispered, her voice tight with panic. "Someone pulled the main breaker on the external panel. The breaker box is in the alley."
A faint, acrid smell drifted down through the ventilation shaft above our heads.
Jonah’s head snapped up. His flashlight beam darted to the ceiling, illuminating a thin, gray tendril of smoke curling through the cast-iron return vent.
"Diesel," Jonah muttered, his voice hardening into something lethal. "They aren't just locking us in. They’re smoking the archive out."
"Victoria wouldn't do this," I whispered, coughing as the heavy, oily fumes hit the back of my throat. "She's an appellate lawyer. She operates through court orders."
"Victoria didn't hire lawyers to find this box," Jonah said, slipping the manila folder into the inner zippered pocket of his heavy canvas work jacket. He grabbed the zinc table and shoved it with tremendous force across the aisle, wedging it beneath the ventilation grate. "She hired contractors who clean up messes for private equity firms. Mack!" he barked into his two-way radio, pulling it from his belt. "Mack, do you copy?"
Static hissed through the speaker. The thick concrete foundations of the Golden bank building were blocking the signal.
"We have to get out of here," Clara coughed, her hand covering her mouth. "The service door at the back has a deadbolt, but the key is upstairs in the main office."
"Where does the old coal chute lead?" Jonah asked, his flashlight scanning the stone walls at the rear of the vault.
Clara blinked through the gathering smoke. "The coal chute? That hasn't been opened since nineteen-sixty! It’s bolted from the inside with rusted steel plates."
"Show me," Jonah commanded.
He didn't wait. He grabbed Clara’s arm, pulled her along the aisle, and motioned for me to stay locked to his belt. We reached the far corner of the basement, where a heavy, circular cast-iron plate was set into the rough-hewn stone wall, four feet off the floor. Heavy oxidized bolts held the hinge in place.
Smoke was thickening rapidly now, dropping down from the ceiling like a black curtain. My eyes burned, tears streaming down my cheeks as I choked on the sulfuric stench of burning engine oil.
Jonah pulled an eight-inch chrome-vanadium adjustable wrench from his back pocket—the one tool he carried everywhere, the twin to my father's caliper. He jammed the jaws of the wrench around the top retaining bolt.
"Nina, hold the flashlight," he ordered.
I gripped the torch, directing the beam at his hands. Jonah braced his boots against the stone floor, his forearms swelling, veins bulging against the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. He let out a low, guttural roar of pure physical effort.
*CRACK.*
The rusted bolt sheared off under the leverage.
"One down," Jonah panted, smoke swirling around his face. He set the wrench on the second bolt. "Come on, David. Give me some room."
He threw his entire body weight into the turn. The second bolt screeched, metal groaning against metal, and then snapped clean. Jonah dropped the wrench, hit the iron hatch with the heel of his heavy work boot, and the rusted plate flew outward with a resounding crash.
Cold, crisp mountain air rushed into the choked basement.
"Clara, up first," Jonah ordered, hooking his hands under her boots and boosting her through the narrow square chute into the darkness above. "Go!"
Clara scrambled through, her boots kicking gravel as she pulled herself onto the ground outside. "I’m out! Nina, take my hands!"
Jonah turned to me. His face was streaked with black soot, but his eyes were blazing with an intensity that took my breath away. He caught me by the waist, lifting me effortlessly off the concrete floor toward the opening.
"Jonah, you come right behind me," I said, coughing violently as the heat from the burning vent began to blister the ceiling paint.
"Right behind you, Nina. Go!"
I grabbed Clara’s outstretched hands, dug the toes of my boots into the stone masonry, and scrambled through the chute, tumbling onto the cold gravel of the narrow alley behind the office building.
I rolled over, gasping for fresh air, my lungs burning.
Inside the alley, fifty yards away, a man in a black tactical jacket was standing beside an idling dark sedan, holding an empty five-gallon fuel container. When he saw Clara and me scramble out of the ground, he dropped the can with a clatter and reached into his jacket.
Before his hand could clear his lapel, Jonah exploded out of the coal chute like a freight train.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't issue a warning. Jonah closed the thirty-foot gap between them in three massive, sprinting strides. He hit the man with a vicious low tackle, driving him back-first into the brick wall of the adjoining dry cleaner with a sickening crunch.
The man’s gun—a compact Glock—skittered across the wet asphalt.
Jonah pinned the man against the brick by his throat, his left hand locked around his windpipe, his right fist drawn back, knuckles bleeding from the iron hatch.
"Who paid you?" Jonah growled, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, primal fury I had never heard from him before. "Who gave you the order to burn the vault?"
The man choked, clawing at Jonah’s grip, his face turning dark purple under the streetlamp. "Apex... Apex Crest... local retention... just supposed to burn... the files..."
Jonah shoved him down into the dirt, planting a heavy steel-toed boot firmly on the man’s sternum until the breath hissed out of him.
Jonah turned his head, looking over his shoulder at me. His chest was heaving, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and soot.
"Nina," he breathed, his voice softening instantly as his eyes raked over me, checking for burns, checking for broken bones. "Are you whole?"
"I’m whole," I whispered, clutching the manila envelope tightly against my ribs. "The master lease is safe."
Jonah looked down at the man pinned beneath his boot, then pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it to Clara.
May you like
"Call Mack," Jonah said quietly. "Tell him to bring the flatbed and Arthur Vance’s state police liaison. Victoria Porter just turned a civil contract dispute into attempted murder."
***
