Chapter 6 - The Steel Rat Trap
Marcus sneered, taking a step closer. "What are you talking about, old man?"
"A lock isn't just a device to keep people out," I said, my voice calm, flat, and devoid of any fear. "A proper lock is a system of vector control. It dictates who moves, when they move, and where they are trapped when they make a mistake."
Vale frowned, his hand sliding instinctively toward his coat pocket. "Shoot them both. We'll search the room ourselves."
Before the guards could raise their weapons, I reached into my tool bag on the floor, grabbed a small wireless radio trigger, and slammed my thumb down on the red button.
BANG!
A loud pneumatic charge fired above the vault door. A heavy, two-ton steel fire shutter—installed forty years ago as a containment measure against toxic vault fires—dropped down like a guillotine behind Vale and his men, sealing the entrance to the outer hallway with a massive thud.
The room was instantly plunged into near-total darkness, illuminated only by the frantic beams of the guards' tactical lights.
"What the hell!" Marcus screamed, rushing back toward the shutter and throwing his body against the solid steel plate. "It's sealed!"
"It's a Class-A fire isolation barrier," I called out from the dark. "It drops automatically on a low-voltage circuit break. The manual override is on the outside of the corridor. You're locked in Vault 417 with us."
"Kill him!" Vale roared, firing his pistol wild into the darkness.
The loud STAT-STAT-STAT of gunshot blasts echoed deafeningly off the granite walls, but Claire and I were already crawling low behind the heavy steel storage racks that lined the perimeter.
I knew the geometry of this vault better than Vale ever could. When the original builders constructed Old City Hall, they included an emergency ventilation shaft behind the east wall rack—a narrow, two-foot-wide duct designed to supply air to workers trapped during an collapse.
"Claire, the east vent!" I whispered, pulling her along the floor behind me.
She knew the layout instantly. She grabbed a small heavy steel pry-bar resting on the bottom shelf, jammed it into the louvers of the air grate, and pulled. The old iron screws snapped out of the rotting masonry with a sharp popping sound.
"Go! Get inside!" I ordered.
"Not without you!" she hissed back.
"I'm right behind you! Move!"
Claire squeezed her slender frame into the dark shaft, sliding through the metal ductwork.
Behind us, Vale’s guards were firing blindly into the rows of shelf units, their heavy boots crunching over fallen paper and broken glass. "They're by the back wall! Get over there!"
I pulled a small smoke canister from my work vest—a tool I used for testing airflow in commercial HVAC systems—pulled the pin, and tossed it straight into the center of the vault. Thick, choking white smoke billowed outward in seconds, filling the confined space and cutting visibility to zero.
The guards began coughing violently, their gunfires scattering harmlessly into the ceiling.
"Marcus!" Vale coughed, his voice panicked now. "Where is the door release?!"
"I don't know!" Marcus shrieked through the smoke. "The old man trapped us!"
I slid into the ventilation shaft behind Claire, grabbed the metal grate, and pulled it back into position behind me, latching it from the inside with a mechanical spring clamp.
We were in total darkness now, crawling through a dust-choked steel tunnel that sloped upward toward the street level above. Behind us, the muffled sounds of Vale’s men pounding uselessly against the fire shutter faded into the distance.
"Where does this lead?" Claire asked, her voice echoing in the tight metal space.
"It exits into the old utility alley behind the power substation," I said, breathing heavily as my old limbs fought against the steep incline. "We have about twenty minutes before Vale’s outside security detail realizes they've lost contact with him and breaks down that fire door."
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"We need to get to the federal prosecutor," Claire said, pushing herself forward. "I have all the financial data on the hard drive in my jacket."
"No," I replied, my eyes fixed on the faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. "First, we get Lily. Then we call in the one man in this city Grant Vale couldn't buy."
