Chapter 47 - The Salt Mines of Altaussee
The descent into the salt mine's auxiliary shaft was like dropping into the throat of an ancient, frozen beast. The air was thick with the brine of ancient oceans, heavy and dry, coating our tongues with salt and the faint, bitter scent of sulfur.
Castiglione moved with practiced lethality, his silenced carbine dropping two Black Sand sentries guarding the upper iron catwalk before they could even flick off their weapon safeties. Their bodies collapsed into the darkness below without a sound.
I stepped onto the rusted steel catwalk, peering down into the colossal subterranean cavern.
Sub-Gallery Nine was vast. Gigantic wooden support pillars, petrified by centuries of mineral brine, held up a ceiling hundreds of feet high. Below us, illuminated by halogen floodlights, sat the Sterling vault: a massive, circular blast door made of Krupp steel, adorned with the faded insignia of Sarah Sterling’s pre-war holding trust.
In the center of the illuminated zone sat Marcus, taped to an industrial steel chair. A digital timer was linked to six red sticks of mining-grade slurry explosive clamped around his ribs. His face was bruised purple, his eyes swollen shut.
Standing ten feet away, leaning heavily on a cane with an ivory handle, was Richard Vance.
He had lost forty pounds. The immaculate tailored Brioni suits were gone, replaced by a stained wool trench coat. His jaw, still wired with surgical steel pins, was clamped into a permanent, monstrous grimace. In his right hand, he held a radio-frequency detonator.
And echoing through the massive cavern, amplified by the subterranean acoustics, his synthetic throat speaker barked into the shadows:
*"I know you're here, Emily. I smelled your arrogance the moment you crossed the border."*
May you like
I stepped to the edge of the catwalk railing, bathing myself in the glare of the halogen lights.
"I didn't come for the family reunion, Richard," I called down, my voice ringing clear and steady across the salt chamber. "I came to collect the final dividend."
