Chapter 5 - BLOOD AND FIRE
Adrian didn't wait for the gas.
He pointed his pistol upward at the heavy iron hinges supporting the copper ventilation grate directly above their heads and fired four rapid shots!
The heavy bolts sheared off!
Before the grate could slam to the concrete floor, Adrian leaped onto the top row of steel deposit boxes, catching the heavy iron frame with his bare hands and wrenching it downward with pure adrenaline!
A mercenary wearing a gas mask leaned over the opening—and Adrian grabbed the man by his tactical vest, pulling him headfirst through the ceiling opening!
The mercenary crashed onto the vault floor, unconscious.
"Up! Now!" Adrian yelled, lifting Elena by her waist and pushing her through the open ceiling shaft onto the maintenance catwalk above!
She scrambled onto the steel mesh, turning around to pull Adrian up just as the first tear gas canister bounced into the vault below, filling the room with thick white smoke!
They sprinted along the narrow catwalk, elevated high above the roaring subway lines beneath Grand Central.
Behind them, Marco's mercenaries fired blindly into the dark rafters! Bullets pinged off the steel girders, sending bright sparks spraying across the dark tunnel like fireworks!
"Head for Track 61!" Adrian roared over the sound of an approaching express train! "The private underground platform built for President Roosevelt!"
They reached a rusted iron emergency door marked RESTRICTED ACCESS — METRO-NORTH AUTHORITIES.
Adrian kicked the lock out with a heavy blow of his boot, throwing the door open into a massive, abandoned train cavern illuminated by flickering yellow work lights.
Sitting on the rusted tracks was an ancient diesel locomotive and a steel passenger car—the historic presidential train abandoned in the 1940s.
A dark figure stepped out from the shadows of the platform, surrounded by six men armed with submachine guns.
It was Nikolai Volkov.
Volkov was sixty years old, with a face carved from scarred granite, silver hair, and a heavy fur-collared coat despite the summer rain leaking through the ceiling.
"Little Adrian," Volkov said in a raspy, booming Russian accent, smiling with gold-capped teeth. "You look just like your father before he drank my tea."
Adrian stepped onto the platform, placing himself directly between Volkov's men and Elena.
"You took my father, Volkov," Adrian said, his gun steady in his right hand. "You took my family's honor. And you turned my father's best friend into a dog."
Volkov chuckled, taking a drag from a silver cigarette holder. "Business is business, boy. Give me the drive, and I will let the girl live as my house servant. Refuse, and I will paint this old train with both your brains."
Elena stepped up beside Adrian, her eyes burning with fierce defiance.
"My father built a trap for you eleven years ago, Volkov," Elena said clearly, her voice echoing through the cavern. "And you just walked right into it."
She pressed a button on her phone.
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Above them, in the streets of Manhattan, the encrypted audio file of Volkov admitting to the assassination of Anthony Moretti was uploaded directly to the private secure servers of every major mafia boss in the North American Commission.
Volkov's phone in his pocket began to ring violently.
