Chapter 7 - The Underground Run
The shockwave from the breaching charge knocked me onto one knee, the cold concrete floor vibrating beneath my palm.
Smoke poured through the ruined basement door, accompanied by the red laser beams of three tactical rifles sweeping across the dark wine racks.
"Target area clear! Move in!" a voice barked in a flat, professional accent.
I didn't try to play the hero. I slid into the dark mouth of the storm tunnel, grabbed the heavy iron door, pulled it shut behind me, and shoved the steel pry bar through the outer latch to jam it from the inside.
I turned and ran through the absolute darkness, my hand sliding along the cold, wet stone wall as my boots splashed through ankle-deep runoff water. The air smelled of damp earth, rust, and age.
Fifty yards ahead, the faint glow of Elena’s tactical flashlight illuminated the narrow passage.
"Daniel!" her voice echoed back to me. "We found the vertical access ladder! It leads up to the boathouse floor!"
I caught up with them at the base of a rusted iron ladder set into a vertical brick shaft. Water was trickling down the rungs from the melting snow above.
"Up! Move!" I urged, taking the rear guard position with my revolver raised toward the dark tunnel behind us.
Muffled thuds echoed from the far end of the passage—the private security contractors were already pounding against the iron grate with a sledgehammer. It wouldn't hold them for more than two minutes.
Elena climbed first, pushing open the wooden trapdoor at the top of the shaft, followed by her two agents. I climbed last, hauling myself up into the freezing darkness of the old boathouse.
The boathouse sat on stilts over the frozen edge of Lake Blackwood. The wind whistled through the gaps in the weathered wooden walls, and the floorboards groaned under our weight. Through the window, I could see the lights of the main estate high up on the ridge, engulfed in the searchlights of the hovering Black Hawk.
"My agency vehicle is parked half a mile down the access road," Elena said, her breath fogging in the freezing air as she checked her pistol’s magazine. "If we can reach it, we can get to the highway before they track our signal."
"They're not tracking our signal," I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. "They're tracking the GPS transponder embedded in Victoria's estate accounts. The moment they realize we're out, they'll sweep the lake perimeter."
Suddenly, the silent air inside the boathouse was shattered by the sharp vibration of my phone screen coming to life.
It wasn't a call from an unknown contractor or an emergency alert.
It was an automated notification from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital intensive care unit.
ALERT: PATIENT VANCE, INFANT - UNFAIR ATTEMPT TO TRANSFER MEDICAL RECORDS INITIATED BY AUTHORIZED FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE.
My blood ran cold.
"Elena," I said, my voice dropping into a register so dark it made the two CID agents step back. "They're not just trying to destroy the evidence at the house."
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"What are they doing?"
"Victoria had a secondary legal contingency," I realized, the horrifying truth dawning on me. "If she got arrested, her corporate lawyers were instructed to immediately claim custody of my son using the forged parental surrender documents she forced Emily to sign before she died. They're at the hospital right now."
