Chapter 13
The shockwave hit the drainage tunnel like a physical fist, throwing Mark, Clara, and Detective Vance violently against the slick concrete walls. Dust, soot, and pulverized concrete rained down from the ceiling in a suffocating avalanche, plunging the culvert into total darkness.
Mark coughed violently, wiping a thick layer of grey ash from his eyes. He waved his hand through the swirling dust, desperately searching for the dim beam of his tactical flashlight, which had rolled a few feet away.
“Clara! Clara, are you okay?!” Mark shouted over the receding rumble of the collapsing warehouse structure above them.
“I’m... I’m here,” Clara coughed weakly from the darkness nearby. A soft groan escaped her lips as she shifted her weight against the damp concrete floor.
Mark scrambled across the rubble, sweeping his flashlight beam across the floor until the bright LED light illuminated Clara and Detective Vance huddled near the tunnel wall. Sarah was already on her knees, pressing a handkerchief against a nasty laceration on her forehead where falling debris had clipped her.
“Everyone alive?” Sarah asked, her voice raspy as she spat a mouthful of dust onto the ground.
“Barely,” Mark muttered, sliding to his knees beside Clara and pulling her gently into his arms. He checked her stomach with trembling hands, letting out a massive sigh of relief when he felt the faint, steady movement of the baby beneath her green top. “Thank God... the baby’s okay.”
Clara clutched her hand tightly around the small, encrypted black USB drive she had managed to salvage from Elena’s coat. She held it out toward Mark like a sacred artifact.
“I got it... the complete financial ledger,” Clara whispered, her green eyes shining with unshed tears. “Every shell company, every offshore account, every name they’ve ever trafficked... it’s all on this drive.”
Detective Vance pushed herself up to her feet, leaning heavily against the concrete wall as she unclipped her shoulder radio. She pressed the transmission button, but the device emitted only a harsh, static hiss. The subterranean depth and the blast interference had completely fried the encrypted relay frequencies.
“We’re cut off from central dispatch,” Sarah said grimly, holstering the dead radio. “And if Arthur and Elena made it to the helipad before the charge detonated, they’re already halfway across international airspace.”
“They didn't make it,” a cold, familiar voice echoed from the deeper shadows of the drainage tunnel ahead.
Mark froze, his blood running ice cold. He slowly raised his flashlight beam, sweeping the narrow corridor toward the iron ladder leading up to the street-level maintenance grate.
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