Chapter 8 - FIRE ON THE ICE
"They don't know we're inside the vault," Julian whispered, shutting down the server terminal and pulling the master drive from the port. "The vault is blast-proof, but if they set fire to the house above, we'll suffocate in here within two hours."
Elena looked around the stone vault, her eyes falling on an old wooden crate near the rear wall labeled MAINTENANCE — TUNNEL.
"Julian, look," she said, running over to the crate and shoving the lid aside.
Inside was a heavy iron wheel set into the concrete wall, covered in cobwebs.
"An escape hatch?" Julian asked.
"Your father built safehouses inside safehouses," Elena said, grabbing the wheel and turning it with all her strength.
With a grinding metal sound, a section of the stone wall slid open, revealing a damp, narrow tunnel leading down into the darkness toward the lake shore.
"Go!" Julian urged, pushing her into the tunnel just as the sound of heavy explosions echoed from the floor above. The Moretti strike team was breaching the main house with thermal charges.
They crawled through the freezing stone tunnel, the sound of collapsing timber and roaring flames echoing behind them.
Ten minutes later, they emerged into an old wooden ice-house sitting on the edge of the frozen lake.
Outside, the main estate was engulfed in towering orange flames, illuminating the falling snow like a apocalyptic bonfire. Moretti mercenaries were patrolling the perimeter, firing automatic weapons into the burning structure to ensure no one survived.
"We have to get to the airstrip," Julian said, shivering violently as the arctic wind howled across the frozen lake. "My father's private helicopter is stationed at the Saratoga county airfield."
"We can't walk across the open ice!" Elena warned, pointing to two mercenaries standing near the shore with thermal imaging binoculars. "They'll spot us in seconds!"
"Then we don't walk," Julian said, pointing to a covered slip inside the ice-house where an old snowmobile sat beneath a canvas tarp.
Julian hotwired the snowmobile ignition in seconds. The engine roared to life with a twin-cylinder purr.
"Hold on tight!" Julian yelled.
He slammed the throttle forward! The snowmobile burst through the wooden doors of the ice-house, flying onto the dark, frozen surface of the lake at sixty miles per hour!
"THERE THEY ARE!" a mercenary shouted from the shore.
Gunfire erupted behind them, muzzle flashes flickering like fireflies against the burning estate background. Bullets zipped through the air, whipping past Elena's ears and kicking up plumes of white snow from the ice surface.
Julian veered wildly, weaving the snowmobile in sharp zig-zag patterns across the lake, heading straight for the dark forest on the opposite shore!
A heavy sniper bullet struck the snowmobile's rear track, causing the vehicle to spin out violently across the slick ice!
Elena screamed as they were thrown from the seat, sliding fifty feet across the frozen lake before crashing into a snowbank at the treeline!
Elena groaned, pushing herself up from the cold snow. Her shoulder throbbed with sharp pain.
Julian was lying three feet away, his face covered in snow, but still clutching the master drive tight in his gloved fist.
May you like
He looked up at her, a fierce, defiant grin breaking through his blood-stained lips.
"We made it to the trees," Julian gasped, standing up and pulling her to her feet. "Now let's go take my father back."
