Chapter 7 - THE RUPTURE
At 8:00 AM on Friday morning, the trap sprung.
The surveillance monitors in the bunker suddenly went black—one after another, four screens flickering into static as the external power lines feeding the hidden suite were severed from the outside.
Declan was out of bed before the third monitor died.
He pulled on his trousers, holstered his 9mm, and picked up a heavy tactical rifle from the rack near the wall.
"Declan?" Cersa sat up, pulling the sheets around her chest, her eyes wide with sudden alarm.
"The perimeter line was cut," Declan said, his voice entirely devoid of panic, replaced by an absolute, lethal calm. "Emergency power is running on the internal batteries. Stay here. Lock the inner door from the panel."
"They found the passage?" she asked, reaching for her robe.
"They didn't find the passage," Declan said, checking the optical sight on his rifle. "They backed a truck loaded with three hundred pounds of industrial explosive into the alleyway behind the building. They're going to blow the structural foundation to bring the whole building down on us."
Cersa froze, her technical mind instantly processing the math. "If they blow the rear foundation arches, the brick firewall will collapse inward. The bunker will hold, but the exit stairwell will be sealed under eighty tons of rubble! We'll be buried alive!"
"Not if I take out the detonation team before they set the charges," Declan said, punching the override code into the door panel.
"Declan, wait!" Cersa scrambled off the bed, ignoring the sharp twinge in her thigh. She grabbed his arm, her eyes burning with intense desperation. "The explosive they use for foundation demolition—it's heavy ANFO! It requires an electrical blasting cap! If you fire a high-velocity round near those bags, you'll spark the whole rig!"
Declan looked down at her, placing his hand over hers on his barrel. "Then what do I do, engineer?"
"The alleyway drain," she said, her eyes flashing with brilliance. "It connects directly to the sub-level drainage vault under Pier 12. If you open the high-pressure release valve from the utility room next door, you can flood the alley with six thousand gallons of river runoff in thirty seconds. It will drown the blasting caps and flush their vehicles out into the main street."
Declan stared at her for one second, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face.
"I love the way your brain works," he whispered.
He kissed her hard on the mouth, pulled her back into the safe room, and locked the door behind him.
Declan moved through the dark cedar passage like a ghost, his silent rubber-soled boots making no sound against the stairs. He reached the sub-level utility vault—a small, concrete-lined room housing the massive iron valves that managed the building's historical drainage connection to the Mississippi riverbank.
Through a small reinforced spy-hole in the alley wall, he could see four men in black coveralls frantically unloading yellow bags of ANFO explosive from the back of an unmarked delivery van.
Standing at the mouth of the alley, holding a radio detonator in his left hand and a heavy automatic pistol in his right, was Victor Moretti.
Victor looked frantic, his grey hair disheveled and his tailored suit covered in dust. He knew the federal indictments were dropping at noon. He had one hour to destroy the records hidden inside Declan's building and kill the woman who held his life in her hands.
"Hurry up, you idiots!" Victor snarled into his radio. "Set the primary charge against the load-bearing arch! I don't care if the whole block comes down! Just blow it!"
Inside the utility room, Declan stepped up to the massive, seven-foot iron wheel controlling the main river surge valve.
The wheel had not been turned in twenty years. It was sealed with heavy grease and red rust.
Declan set his feet, wrapped his massive hands around the iron spokes, and gritted his teeth, his muscles bulging beneath his shirt as he threw his entire body weight against the wheel.
With a horrifying, screeching groan of metal against metal, the rust cracked.
Declan spun the wheel three full rotations.
Deep beneath the building, a sound like a thunderous roar answered—the sound of six thousand gallons of river water rushing through the forty-inch reinforced iron intake pipes under immense hydraulic pressure.
Outside in the narrow brick alleyway, Victor Moretti suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet vibrate violently.
"What the hell is that?" one of the men unloading the van yelled, looking down at the storm grate beneath his boots.
Before anyone could move, the iron storm grate erupted upward with the force of a geyser.
A mountain of muddy, violent river water exploded out of the ground, blasting five feet into the air. The wall of water slammed into the side of the delivery van, lifting the three-ton vehicle off its tires and smashing it against the brick wall of the alley.
The bags of ANFO were swept away in a roaring torrent of liquid, their paper casings tearing open and dissolving the explosive compound into useless, muddy slush.
Victor Moretti was thrown off his feet, his radio detonator torn from his hand as he was swept fifty feet down the alley toward Chartres Street, screaming and choking on river water as he slammed into the iron trash receptacles at the corner.
Declan stepped out of the back door of the Red Anchor three seconds later, dressed in his dark suit, his tactical rifle resting easily against his shoulder.
He walked through the knee-deep, receding water toward where Victor Moretti lay bruised, dripping, and gasping for air on the sidewalk.
Declan set his boot on Victor's chest, pinning the mob boss to the wet pavement.
May you like
He pulled his phone from his pocket, opened a live video link to the U.S. Attorney's office, and held the screen in front of Victor's face.
"Victor Moretti," Declan said smoothly over the sound of approaching police sirens in the distance. "Meet Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller. He has a five-hundred-page federal indictment regarding Project Aegis he's been waiting to read to you all morning."
