Chapter 38 - The Poisoned Bloodline
"Julian!" Eleanor screamed, diving toward the vault entrance.
Julian threw his shoulder against the heavy closing seal, jamming his tactical crowbar into the hydraulic track. Sparks showered the floor as the gears ground violently against the hardened steel tool.
"The security grid has been overridden remotely!" Julian yelled, veins bulging on his forehead as he held the gap open. "Get out! Now!"
Eleanor grabbed Leo by his collar, dragging him through the four-foot gap into the corridor just as the crowbar snapped with a deafening crack, sealing Vault 404 shut forever.
Leo collapsed against the corridor wall, gasping for air. His skin had turned a pale, sickly gray, and his lips were tinged with faint violet.
"Leo!" Eleanor dropped to her knees, taking his face in her hands. His skin was burning hot, yet he was shivering violently. "Leo, look at me! What's wrong?"
"Mom..." Leo whispered, his vision blurring. "The hard drive... when I touched the case... there was a micro-needle in the lock mechanism..."
Eleanor grabbed Leo's right hand. A tiny puncture wound sat on the pad of his index finger, surrounded by black, spider-webbing veins creeping toward his wrist.
"Neurotoxin," Julian said, his eyes darkening as he knelt beside them, pulling a medical scanner from his kit. "It’s a tailored synthetic venom—a proprietary Vance biological agent known as *Thanatos-7*. It targets the nervous system within six hours unless the synthetic antidote is administered."
"Where is the antidote?" Eleanor demanded, her voice rising into an animalistic roar of pure maternal fury. She grabbed Julian’s lapels. "Where is it, Julian?!"
"It isn't in Zurich," Julian said, checking the decrypted transmission log retrieved from Marcus Evans’s phone. "The bio-lab that manufactures the compound is housed inside an offshore maritime fortress in the North Sea. It’s called *The Bastion*. It's The Cardinal’s private redoubt."
Eleanor rose to her feet, her eyes burning with an unholy fire. The fear was gone. The hesitation was gone. There was only a mother who had clawed her way out of hell once, and was more than willing to drag the rest of the world down with her to save her child.
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"Julian, prep the private jet," Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a register of sheer, lethal calm. "Call Nikolai Voronin and the Brighton Beach syndicate. Tell them that if they want their fifty million dollars back, they are meeting me at the docks of Antwerp with thirty armed mercenaries and heavy artillery."
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