Chapter 10 - Secrets in the Service Tunnels
The narrow service corridor was pitch black, lit only by the faint red glow of emergency exit signs flickering at distant intervals. Elena ran blindly, her breath coming in ragged gasps as the adrenaline surged through her veins. Behind her, the heavy thud of the tactical operative trying to break through the iron deadbolt echoed like a drumbeat of impending doom.
She rounded a sharp corner and stumbled, her bare foot catching on an exposed electrical conduit running along the floorboards. She hit the dusty linoleum hard, scraping her knee, but the flash drive flew from her hand, skittering across the floor into the deep shadows beneath an old laundry chute.
"Damn it," she hissed, scrambling on her hands and knees in the dark.
Her fingers swept frantically over the dusty floorboards until they brushed against the smooth, cold plastic of the drive. She snatched it up just as the service door behind her finally gave way with a deafening metallic crash.
"I hear you scrambling like a rat, little princess," the scarred man’s voice echoed down the long, narrow corridor, accompanied by the slow, deliberate click of his combat boots on the concrete floor.
Elena scrambled backward until her spine hit the brick wall of the laundry shaft. There was nowhere left to run. This corridor was a dead end, used decades ago to transport linens down to the basement incinerator rooms.
She looked up at the open metal hatch of the laundry chute overhead. It was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through, and the drop below was entirely unlit.
Footsteps rounded the corner twenty feet away. The beam of a tactical flashlight cut through the darkness, sweeping directly toward her face, blinding her with its intense white glare.
"End of the line, Ms. Sterling," the man said, raising his rifle.
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Without thinking, Elena grabbed the metal handle of the laundry chute, pulled herself up using the wire conduit, and threw herself headfirst into the dark, metal drop just as a bullet sparked off the brickwork inches from her hip.
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