Chapter 6 - The Trail of Chemical Smoke
“How did they track us?” I screamed under my breath, backing away from the console toward Lily. “You said the helicopter was untraceable!”
Mason’s eyes swept the security monitors, his face turning dark as iron.
“The chopper is clean,” Mason growled, pulling a tactical headset over his ears. “The flight path was scrambled. They didn't follow the chopper, Maya.”
He turned his head slowly, looking at the small black leather address book that Adrian had given me at the hospital—the book sitting on the coffee table beside my bag.
“The address book,” I whispered, horror rising like bile in my throat. “It had a tracker inside it?”
“A micro-RFID chip embedded in the leather binding,” Mason cursed softly, snatching the book up and throwing it into the roaring stone fireplace. The black leather hissed, bubbled, and burst into bright orange flames. “Julian had access to Adrian’s personal items while Adrian was in surgery.”
The chime on the wall panel rang again, faster now.
On the camera feeds, four men in heavy dark parkas stepped out of the black SUV. They were carrying tactical shotguns and mechanical door-breaching equipment.
“Listen to me,” Mason said, grabbing my shoulders with a firm, steady grip that instantly cut through my panic. “This house was built for a siege. The lower bunker is located beneath the cellar wine vault. It’s a sealed steel vault with its own oxygen supply and an independent satellite transmitter.”
He reached down, picking Lily up in his arm while holding his rifle in the other.
“I’m taking you down there right now,” Mason commanded. “You lock the hatch from the inside. You do not open it for anyone except me or Adrian. Do you understand?”
“What about you?” I cried, following him down the narrow stone stairs leading into the basement.
“I’m going to buy you thirty minutes,” Mason said, setting Lily down inside a small, brightly lit steel room lined with emergency rations, water drums, and medical supplies. “My boys on the perimeter are already taking positions in the woods. We’re going to flush these bastards out before they get near the main hall.”
He shoved a heavy steel handwheel toward me—the locking mechanism for the three-inch-thick vault door.
“Lock it, Maya! Now!”
Before I could argue, Mason stepped back into the basement corridor and slammed the massive steel door shut.
I grabbed the heavy iron wheel, cranking it down with all my strength. The heavy steel bolts clicked into place with a series of deep, metallic thuds.
Silence descended upon the bunker—a heavy, suffocating silence broken only by the hum of the air filtration system and Lily’s quiet breathing.
I crouched on the floor, pulling Lily into my arms, hugging her tightly against my chest as we sat in the middle of the cold steel room.
Ten minutes passed.
Then fifteen.
Through three inches of solid hardened steel and six feet of mountain bedrock, I couldn't hear gunshots. I couldn't hear screams. I couldn't hear if Mason was winning or if he was dead on the hardwood floor above us.
Lily rested her head against my collarbone. She wasn't crying anymore. She was staring at the small intake vent near the ceiling where fresh air was being drawn from the mountain surface.
Suddenly, her small body went rigid.
She sniffed once.
Then twice.
“Mama,” Lily whispered, her little voice trembling with a strange, chilling certainty.
“What is it, baby?” I asked, my heart pounding in my ears.
“The air vent,” Lily said, pointing her tiny finger at the brass grille near the ceiling. “It smells like burning tires and matches.”
My eyes widened in terror.
I scrambled to my feet, rushing to the control panel mounted beside the vault door.
The air quality indicator light—which had been a steady green—was flicking rapidly between orange and red.
Carbon monoxide detection. Chemical contaminant spike.
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Julian’s men hadn't tried to breach the three-inch steel vault door. They had found the external intake pipes on the roof of the lodge and were pumping heavy engine exhaust and industrial chemical smoke straight down into our air filtration system.
The steel vault that was supposed to save us was being turned into an airtight oven.
