Chapter 4 - The Midnight Breach
The backup generators should have kicked on within four seconds. They didn't. That meant someone had manually bypassed the transfer switches in the sub-basement. Julian wasn't waiting for a court order; he was extracting my father under the cover of a simulated power failure.
The red glow of the emergency exit signs flickered to life, casting eerie crimson shadows across the high ceilings. From out in the hallway, the unmistakable metallic scrape of a master keycard sliding into our electronic lock echoed through the silence.
“Bedroom. Now,” I hissed, supporting my father by the waist while Lucy grabbed his wooden cane.
We slipped into the master suite and ducked through the concealed luggage closet, which housed a private service hatch designed for VIP security evacuations. My hand found the manual latch behind the garment rack. With a muffled screech of ungreased hinges, the panel popped open, revealing a narrow metal ladder plunging into the vertical maintenance shaft.
Behind us, the suite's front door clicked open. Heavy, tactical footsteps echoed over the hardwood foyer.
“Check the rooms,” a harsh voice commanded in the dark. “Keep it silent. The old man doesn't leave this building alive if he won't go willingly.”
My father stiffened. Tears welled in his aged eyes, but I gripped his shoulder, pressing my forehead against his. “I lost you once, Dad. I’m not losing you again.”
Lucy went first, guiding my father’s trembling feet down the narrow rungs with astonishing gentleness and patience. I climbed down last, reaching up to pull the access grate flush just as a beam of tactical white light swept across the master bedroom floor above our heads.
We descended three levels in the dark, the roar of the hotel’s central ventilation system masking the sound of our descent, until we tumbled into the auxiliary laundry tunnels. The air down here smelled of bleach, steam, and cold concrete.
“This way,” Lucy whispered, leading the way through a maze of industrial washing machines and towering carts of white linen. Her familiarity with the hotel’s unseen veins was our only shield.
We rounded the corner toward the old wine cellar hatch when the beam of a flashlight hit us square in the chest.
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Standing beside the heavy steel hatch was Jason Mercer. In his hand was not a master key, but a phone pressed to his ear.
“They’re down here,” Jason said into the phone, stepping forward to block our path. “Level B-3.”
