Chapter 46 - Blood on the Marble
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They marched us down a long, echoing corridor toward Vault 77. The massive titanium door of the vault was wide open. Inside, Elias Thorne stood over a stainless-steel table, frantically packing stacks of bearer bonds and hard drives into a duffel bag.
"Ah, David and Irene," Thorne said without looking up, his voice echoing in the cold chamber. "I'm afraid you’re too late. The purge protocol initiates in three minutes. All digital records of my existence will be wiped, and the network will burn."
"You're not leaving this mountain, Elias," I said, calculating the distance between myself and the closest guard.
Thorne finally looked up, an amused, evil smile on his face. "Kill them. Leave their bodies in the vault before it seals."
The lead guard raised his rifle.
In a fraction of a second, I dropped to one knee, sweeping my hand down to my ankle. I drew the ceramic pistol and fired two rapid shots. The suppressed pfft-pfft echoed sharply. The lead guard took a round to the chest and collapsed.
Irene didn't hesitate. She launched herself backward, using the distraction to grab a heavy bronze stanchion from the hallway and swung it brutally into the knees of the second guard.
Chaos erupted.
Bullets shattered the marble walls, spraying stone shrapnel across the corridor. I dove behind a massive stone pillar, returning fire. I took down the third mercenary with a clean shot to the shoulder, while Irene wrestled the dropped rifle from the second guard, knocking him unconscious with the buttstock.
Thorne panicked. He grabbed a handgun from the table and bolted toward the secondary escape elevator at the back of the vault.
"Cover me!" I yelled, breaking from the pillar and sprinting directly into the vault.
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The fourth guard stepped into my path, aiming his shotgun. A sudden, deafening crack echoed from the funicular tunnel behind us. The guard's chest exploded backward as Julian’s sniper round, fired all the way from the ridge, penetrated the glass of the lobby and found its mark.
I leaped over the fallen guard, tackling Thorne just as he reached the elevator doors. We crashed violently onto the steel floor, the duffel bag of billions spilling across the ground.
