Chapter 10 - The Subterranean Vault
Down in the subterranean wine cellar, the air was cold, damp, and smelled of aged wood and freshly turned earth.
The room was vast, stretching sixty feet beneath the main house, lined with dark brick archways and thousands of vintage wine bottles resting in custom oak racks. But at the far end of the cellar, behind a heavy iron-reinforced door, lay the structural foundation room.
Julian Vance descended the stone stairs slowly, blood dripping from a shallow cut on his temple where a plaster fragment had struck him during the hallway firefight. His Kimber 9mm was held ready, two rounds remaining in the magazine.
Two of Arthur Sterling’s operatives lay neutral on the main floor above. But the team leader—Arthur’s chief of security, a ruthless mercenary named Vance Croft—had reached the sub-basement.
Julian stepped onto the cold concrete floor of the cellar.
Standing near the central load-bearing pillar, lit by the red glow of a portable tactical work light, was Croft. He had already opened the concrete access panel on the pillar, exposing the thick blocks of gray Semtex explosive that had been cast into the building's frame four years ago.
Croft was wiring a manual radio frequency detonator directly into the primary fuse block.
"You're too late, Vance," Croft said without looking back, his fingers deftly twisting copper wires together in the dim red light. "The moment I press this receiver button, the pillars collapse. The whole estate drops sixty feet into the bedrock."
"Victoria is in police custody, Croft," Julian said, his voice steady, stepping around an oak barrel, leveling his pistol at Croft’s back. "Arthur’s data transfer failed. You have nothing left to buy your way out of this."
Croft turned slowly around, holding a small black radio detonator in his left hand, his thumb resting over the illuminated red button.
"Arthur Sterling doesn't lose, Julian," Croft said with a dark smile. "He simply reallocates his losses. Victoria was a terrible investment. You were a stubborn obstacle. But this land... this real estate... is worth ninety million dollars as an undeveloped lot once the rubble is cleared."
"Take your hand off that button," Julian commanded.
"If you shoot me, my thumb drops onto the switch," Croft replied smoothly, taking a slow step toward the stone stairs. "Dead man's trigger. We both go down together."
Julian stared at Croft’s thumb. He knew the physics of a dead-man trigger switch: if the nerve signal died, the muscle relaxed, closing the circuit and triggering the explosion.
Shooting Croft would kill them all.
Suddenly, a sharp, metallic clack echoed from the top of the cellar stairs.
Arthur Sterling stepped down into the red light of the wine cellar.
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He was fifty years old, impeccably dressed in a dark cashmere overcoat, his silver hair slicked back, carrying a silver-handled walking cane. His face was a mirror image of Victoria’s—handsome, arrogant, and utterly devoid of human empathy.
"Put the gun down, Julian," Arthur said softly, his cane tapping against the stone floor with a rhythmic, sinister click. "Let's talk like businessmen."
