Chapter 123 - The Plunge Beneath the Stone
The first strike shook the entire apartment. Plaster dust fell from the crown molding like powdered sugar, dusting Emma’s shoulders and Maya’s hair. Maya didn't scream; she clamped her small hands over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut, following the survival lessons Emma had drilled into her across the frozen fields of upstate New York.
"Move! Now!" Claire commanded.
Sterling led the way into the narrow galley kitchen. He kicked aside a stack of canned provisions and hauled up an iron trapdoor hidden beneath an antique woolen rug. Below lay an abyss of cool, damp air smelling of wet slate, sulfur, and a century of urban neglect.
"The shaft drop is eight feet to the emergency service catwalk," Sterling said, swinging his legs over the lip. "Claire, drop Maya to me. Then Emma. Claire covers the rear."
"Go!" Emma urged.
Sterling dropped into the dark with a dull thud. A second later, his gravelly voice echoed from below: "Clear! Send her down!"
Emma loosened Maya’s grip gently. "Maya, look at me. Look into my eyes."
The little girl opened her hazel eyes, shimmering with tears, but steadfast. "I'm brave, Mommy. Like the girls in the storybook."
"You are braver than all of them," Emma said, her voice cracking with fierce love. "Uncle Sterling is right below. Drop into his arms. Don't make a sound."
Emma lowered Maya through the opening. The child slipped into the dark, and an instant later Sterling’s strong hands caught her securely against his chest. "Got her! She’s safe!"
Before Emma could step through, the front door exploded inward with a deafening crash of splintering oak and sheared steel bolts.
Flash-bang grenades detonated in the foyer. The blinding magnesium flash illuminated the kitchen in stark, terrifying white, followed by a shockwave that rattled the copper pots hanging above the island. Emma fell to her knees, her ears ringing with high-pitched agony.
Through the smoke, two silhouettes in matte-black tactical gear, night-vision optics glowing eerie green, moved into the corridor. The lead operative raised a suppressed submachine gun, leveling it straight at Emma’s chest.
"Consortium security! Down on the—"
Claire didn't give him the chance to finish. Rising from behind the kitchen island, Claire fired three rapid shots. The heavy hollow-point rounds slammed into the operator’s ceramic chest plate, knocking him backward into his squad mate with a grunt of shock.
"Down, Emma!" Claire roared, grabbing Emma’s collar and practically throwing her into the open square of the trapdoor.
Emma dropped into the darkness. She struck the rusted metal catwalk hard, rolling onto her side as the impact jarred her ankle. Sterling immediately grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet and shoving her down the narrow, vaulted tunnel of red brick.
Above them, another burst of automatic fire chewed through the kitchen floorboards. Claire dropped down through the shaft an instant later, landing like a cat, a fresh magazine already clicking into her sidearm. She reached up, grabbed the heavy iron trapdoor, and slammed it shut, wedging an entrenching tool through the latch mechanism.
"That will hold them for ninety seconds," Claire panted, her face streaked with soot. "Sterling, where does this tunnel lead?"
"Directly into the service conduits of the old Mount Royal rail tunnel," Sterling said, his flashlight beam slicing through the thick underground mist. Maya was nestled securely inside his tactical coat, her small head peeking out, watching the shadows dance on the dripping brick walls. "If we hit the main subterranean junction, we can cross under the perimeter cordons. But Vogel isn't working alone."
"What do you mean?" Emma asked, running beside them, ignoring the throbbing pain in her twisted ankle.
Sterling held up his wrist terminal, where a blinking satellite tracker was displaying an incoming encrypted communication. "Eleanor didn't just authorize Vogel to hunt us. She activated the legacy emergency clause of the Vance Trust. She’s liquidated five hundred million dollars in bearer bonds through an offshore exchange in the Bahamas. She’s offering a fifty-million-dollar bounty for Maya’s custody to anyone who can bring her alive to the Vance compound in Vermont before dawn."
May you like
Emma’s breath caught in her throat. "She wants to drag my child back to the house where she broke me? She thinks she can buy Maya like a piece of furniture?"
"She doesn't want to buy her, Emma," Claire said grimly as they reached a rusted iron ladder descending deeper into the earth. "She wants to erase you. To Eleanor, you were the daughter who refused to be molded. Maya is her second chance to create the perfect, obedient Vance heiress. And she will burn down Montreal to get her."
