Chapter 22 - The Breach at Midnight
The sudden descent of the blast doors cut off the high beams of the SUVs outside, plunging the foyer into pitch darkness broken only by the flashlights mounted on the mercenaries' rifles. The heavy steel plates clanged against the marble floors like the doors of a bank vault, vibrating through Daniel's boots.
"Thermal vision, now!" Graves barked, his voice losing its aristocratic composure. "Find the breaker panel! Blow the shutters!"
"Move, now!" Daniel whispered to Natalie and Mia.
He gripped Natalie’s arm, leading them backward through the darkened service corridor that led to the old butler’s pantry. Havenwood had been built during the Gilded Age, designed with an intricate network of hidden servants' passages and reinforced bomb shelters from the Cold War era. Daniel knew every square inch of the mansion; Graves and his mercenaries were operating on blueprints that hadn't been updated since 1985.
Behind them, a burst of suppressed automatic gunfire tore through the plaster walls of the corridor. Splinters and dust rained down on Daniel’s shoulders. Mia gasped, stifling a scream as a round shattered an antique porcelain vase inches above her head.
"Natalie, can you get into the estate’s auxiliary grid?" Daniel urged, shoving open a heavy oak door that blended seamlessly into the wainscoting.
Natalie pulled out her tablet, her fingers moving with surgical precision despite her shaking hands. "I’m in. Havenwood’s secondary generator is still running on independent battery cells. But Daniel, look at this perimeter feed."
She tilted the screen toward him. The infrared cameras outside showed not just Graves’s two black SUVs, but three local police cruisers parked at the gates, their emergency lights off, their officers leaning casually against the hoods, smoking cigarettes.
"The police are staging a blockade," Natalie breathed, her eyes wide with terror. "Graves bought the precinct commander. If they kill us in here, the official story will be an electrical fire or an armed home invasion gone wrong. No sirens are coming to save us."
"Then we don't wait for sirens," Daniel said, his eyes blazing with feral resolve. "We make our own noise."
May you like
He turned to the wall of the pantry, ripping open the panel to the old steam radiator release valves. If Charles Bellamy wanted to turn Havenwood into a warzone, Daniel was going to give him hell.
***
