Chapter 8 - The Tunnel Beneath the Station
"Frank, what is that in your hand?" Mateo yelled over the continuous thud of armor-piercing rounds penetrating the exterior brickwork. Tear gas burned his throat, making each breath a ragged torment.
"It’s not an explosive," Vance coughed, his face smeared with gray ash and blood. "It’s the master override for the old municipal storm drainage beneath the holding cells. The precinct was built over an old civil defense bunker. If they breach the front lobby, the entire squad is slaughtered."
"We can't abandon the building!"
"They aren't here for the department, Cruz! They’re here for Elena! She knows the location of the extraction site where Jack hid the synthesis key!" Vance slammed the remote against the wall. A heavy steel grating in the floor of the evidence locker popped open with a groan of rusty hydraulic pistons. "Take her down! Follow the water conduit south toward the industrial canal! I’ll buy you ten minutes."
"You're staying?" Mateo demanded, hoisting Elena against his chest as bullets tore through the doorframe above them.
"I helped build this monster," Vance said, racking the slide of his tactical shotgun. "It’s time I took my share of the shrapnel."
Mateo dropped into the darkness of the service tunnel, Elena clinging to his neck. The hatch slammed shut above them, followed instantly by the concussive roar of an explosive breaching charge detonating in the bullpen above. Concrete dust showered over them as Mateo flicked on his tactical weapon light.
The tunnel was narrow, half-submerged in sluggish, oily runoff water that reached Mateo’s knees. The subterranean air was thick with the reek of fuel and decaying matter.
"Mateo," Elena whispered, her voice trembling in the damp acoustic tunnel. "The photo... the man with the scratched face isn't my father."
Mateo stopped dead in the cold water, shining his light down at the child’s soaked face. "What did you say?"
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"My mama told me before she died," Elena stammered, pulling a small silver locket from beneath her collar. She snapped it open. Inside was a portrait of Mateo’s own older brother, David Cruz, who had vanished while serving as a contract medic seven years ago. "Mama said your brother died protecting us... and that you were the only family we had left."
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