Chapter 12 - Escape Through the Storm Drains
"Move!" Mr. Reed yelled, releasing his grip on Victoria and grabbing Elena by the arm just as the advancing wall of grey concrete foam swallowed the primary terminal in a thick, solid mass.
Victoria scrambled to her feet, coughing violently from the chemical fumes, lunging desperately toward the open hydraulic tunnel, but Mr. Reed kicked out with his heel, catching her squarely in the chest and sending her sprawling backward into the soft, expanding foam that choked the center of the room.
"No! Let me out!" Victoria screamed, thrashing against the dense, sticky material as it rapidly hardened around her legs like quick-setting cement.
Mr. Reed didn't look back. He pulled Elena through the narrow hydraulic tunnel, the two of them crawling on their hands and knees through the damp, echoing concrete storm drain as the heavy hydraulic door behind them sealed shut, locking Victoria and her multi-billion-dollar empire inside the subterranean vault forever.
They crawled for what felt like hours through the labyrinth of municipal drainage pipes, the distant sound of rushing water growing louder with every yard they traversed, until finally, a wash of cold, clean night air hit their faces.
They burst out of the drainage pipe opening into a wide, concrete drainage basin located a half-mile outside the cemetery perimeter, tumbling down the snowy embankment into the shallow, ice-cold runoff stream at the bottom.
Elena lay flat on her back in the freezing water, staring up at the clear, starry winter sky, her chest heaving as she sucked in massive lungfuls of fresh air. Her white strapless wedding gown was completely ruined, soaked through with mud and stained with grey chemical residue, but as she reached up to touch her face, she realized she was smiling.
Mr. Reed crawled up beside her, sitting on the muddy bank as he wrung out the cuffs of his ruined trench coat, letting out a long, weary chuckle.
"Well, Elena," Mr. Reed said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I must admit, that was not quite the honeymoon trip I would have recommended for you."
Elena pushed herself up to a sitting position, wiping a streak of mud from her forehead, her eyes shining with absolute clarity.
"It wasn't a honeymoon, Mr. Reed," she said softly, pulling her encrypted smartphone from the pocket of her ruined dress. The screen was miraculously intact, glowing with hundreds of real-time notifications from the SEC, the Department of Justice, and international banking regulators confirming the successful liquidation and redistribution of the entire Vance-Reed trust. "It was an execution."
May you like
Just then, the familiar roar of a heavy engine echoed from the access road above the drainage basin. The headlights of three black federal transport vehicles cut through the darkness, sweeping across the embankment, and a moment later, federal agent Vance scrambl
[... đã cắt bớt, xem bản đầy đủ trong tệp trên máy ...]
