Chapter 11 - THE MASTER BLUEPRINT
The SUV tore through the iron gates of Blackwood Manor at eighty kilometers per hour, its tires skidding across the wet gravel before Marcus slammed the brakes, bringing the heavy vehicle to a halt right in front of the main entrance.
The estate was dark, abandoned by the police forensic team who had cleared out an hour earlier. The heavy double doors stood slightly ajar, swaying gently in the rising mountain wind.
Lily burst out of the passenger side, her beige trench coat soaking wet, her boots splashing through the puddles on the marble steps. Marcus followed close behind, holding a heavy tire iron he had grabbed from the trunk.
Behind them, down the long pine-lined driveway, the twin headlights of the two pursuing sedans emerged from the fog.
"They'll be at the door in thirty seconds!" Marcus shouted over the roar of the wind.
"Then we have twenty seconds to spare," Lily replied, stepping into the dark foyer.
She didn't run to the study or the master bedroom. She ran straight to the center of the hall, directly beneath the massive crystal chandelier.
She knelt on the freezing marble floor, right where James had fallen earlier that evening. She pulled her hair clip from her hair and wedged its thin steel tip into the decorative brass seam surrounding the central floor medallion—a detailed compass rose carved from black and white Italian marble.
She twisted the clip with all her strength.
A heavy mechanical thud reverberated through the floorboards beneath their feet. The central compass rose dropped two inches into the floor, then slid smoothly to the side on oiled steel rails, revealing a dark, narrow spiral stairwell leading down into the foundations of the estate.
Marcus stared down into the black abyss. "What is this place? I've lived near this estate for ten years, I never knew this was here."
"My father built this manor during the Cold War," Lily said, stepping onto the first iron step of the stairwell. "It wasn't designed as a residence. It was designed as an underground signal relay station for the Norwegian defense ministry. The house above is just a wooden shell built over a hardened military bunker."
"Lily!" Marcus shouted as the headlights of the first sedan swept across the front glass doors, illuminating the foyer in blinding white light. Heavy footsteps slammed onto the marble steps outside.
"Get down here and pull the lever!" Lily commanded from the shadows below.
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Marcus threw himself down the spiral stairs, reached up, and yanked the heavy iron manual lever mounted to the interior wall.
Above them, the heavy marble compass rose slid back into place with a violent, pneumatic slam, sealing them in absolute darkness just as the first gunshots shattered the front glass doors of the estate.
