Chapter 11 - The Voice in the Wall
“Welcome to your final resting place, Lady Clara,” the distorted voice rasped through the speaker, echoing mockingly off the damp brick walls. “You fought valiantly, but some games are simply unwinnable.”
Julian pounded his fist against the reinforced steel door, panic threatening to overwhelm his fragile composure. “Who are you? Show yourself, coward!”
“There is no need for introductions, young Lord Sterling,” the voice replied smoothly. “Your uncle was a fool who lacked the vision to see the bigger picture. But you... and your resilient sister... you became an inconvenient loose end that needed tying up.”
Clara didn't waste her breath shouting at the wall. Her sharp eyes scanned the exposed electrical conduit running along the ceiling, tracing the thick bundles of copper wire straight toward a digital control panel concealed behind a rusted metal access plate.
“Commander Vance,” Clara whispered, pointing toward the panel without taking her eyes off it. “Can you override that lock with the frequency modulator on your radio?”
Vance nodded grimly, unhooking the heavy electronic device from his tactical belt and stepping up to the wall. “It’s a rolling-code cipher. I’ll need at least sixty seconds to crack the handshake protocol.”
“You have thirty,” Clara said, stepping in front of Vance and raising her hunting knife as the sound of hissing steam began to fill the lower chamber from hidden vents near the floor. “The temperature in here is rising. They’re pumping high-pressure steam into the room.”
Thick white plumes of scalding steam billowed across the floor, burning their ankles and reducing visibility to mere inches. Julian coughed violently, sinking down onto the damp bricks as the heat enveloped them like an oven.
“Hurry, Vance!” Julian choked out, his vision swimming.
“Almost... got it,” Vance gritted his teeth, his fingers flying across the tiny keypad of the modulator as sweat poured down his forehead.
Suddenly, the speaker crackled again. “Tick-tock, Commander. Thirty seconds left before the room reaches boiling point.”
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Clara gripped her hunting knife, her muscles coiled like a spring. She knew that even if the door opened, an armed hit squad would be waiting on the other side in the steam-filled corridor.
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