Chapter 225: Entry Through the Steel Maw

The service alley behind the Banque Lombard was a canyon of dripping stone and over-flowing dumpsters, a wet-garbage-and-diesel reek that dawned grey light and did nothing to warm it. Rico and his two specialists were already at work, in dark coveralls, hunched over open muni-cipal access hatches, their movements quick and silent. The resonant hum of their equipment was barely audible, a wasp's nest murmur under the city's quiet.

Sabatine, Anton, and Leon watched from the mouth of a parallel alley, the florist van idling behind them. Jessica's voice was a steady, quiet stream in their earpieces.

"Rico's team is starting phase one. Circuit overload on the primary grid feed. now. Heat signature from the building shows a flicker. Back-up generators are kicking on. right on schedule. Fuel pump signature is online. They're drawing on reserves."

On cue, a deeper thrum joined the city's ambient noise-the sound of heavy diesel generators kicking in somewhere deep within the stone bowels of the bank. The building was now running on its own life support.

"Phase two in thirty seconds," Rico's voice came through on a separate channel, even and professional. "Comms blackout on my mark."

Sabatine turned to Anton. "Once the comms go, they're blind to the outside. They'll know it's an attack, but not from where or how many. That's our window. We get inside before they can regroup and lock the place down from the inside."

Anton nodded, his face pale but set. He held the steel wrench like a talisman. "How do we get in? The main doors are vault-grade. The windows are barred."

A grim smile touched Sabatine's lips. "Banks like this have a front door for clients, a back door for staff, and a steel maw for swallowing money." He pointed to the far end of the alley, where a massive rust-streaked steel shutter was set into the bank's foundation, wide enough for an armoured truck. "The old freight entrance. For bullion deliveries. It leads to a loading bay, then to the vault elevators."

"It'll be locked. Reinforced," Leon said.

"It will," Sabatine agreed. "But it's a mechanical lock, not digital. From the outside. And Rico's little power surge will have tripped every electronic lock and alarm in the place. The mechanical ones will still hold, but the central monitoring system will be blind. They won't know if someone is picking the freight door."

"Mark," Rico's voice said. A second later, the faint, ever-present digital hum of the city-the subliminal noise of a million connected devices-seemed to vanish from the air around the bank. A dead zone. "Comms are down. You have an estimated fifteen minutes before they rig alternative systems. Go."

"Leon, you're our getaway and our link to Jessica via the van's boosted satellite rig," Sabatine ordered. "Monitor Rico's progress. If this goes south, you get Jessica to release everything. Understood?"

Leon nodded sharply, his hand resting on the door handle of the van. "Understood. Don't make me have to explain to that lawyer how I lost you."

Sabatine clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to Anton. "Stay behind me. Step where I step. If I stop, you freeze. No questions."

Anton's grey eyes open, clear, and he meets his gaze. "Lead."

They moved, two shadows flitting across the alley mouth and into the deeper gloom along the bank's massive flank. The freight shutter loomed, a slab of pitted steel. Sabatine approached it, not with trepidation, but with a surgeon's focus. He ran his fingers along the seam, and found a concealed keyhole behind a sliding plate thick with grime.

He drew out a set of picks, finer than surgical tools, from a pouch on his belt and fitted them into place, his head cocked, listening to the faint clicks and groans of the huge internal tumblers. The world dwindled to the lock, to the feel of cool metal in his hands, to Anton's steady, quiet presence at his back.

Sweat beaded upon his brow, mingling with the grime. This was a lock meant to keep brute force and time off its back. It would not give up easily. Seconds ticked by, each one a grain of sand falling in their rapidly diminishing window.

Anton watched, not the lock, but Sabatine. The absolute concentration on his face, the minute tremors of effort in his forearms. He saw the man that had negotiated digital fortresses now taking a physical one with the same ruthless patience. Any flicker of doubt Anton might have felt was incinerated in the furnace of that trust. He'd follow this man into the dark without hesitation.

A final, deep clunk resonated through the steel, a sound more felt than heard. Sabatine exhaled aloud. He reached out and grasped a recessed handle, tugging. With a groan of protest from long-unused hinges, the huge shutter began to rise-only a foot, then two-revealing a gap of impenetrable blackness.

The smell that came out was ancient-cold stone, stale oil, and the faint, metallic tang of old money. The steel maw was open.

Sabatine dove onto his belly and wormed under the door. Anton was after him, his back scraping the cold, greasy concrete, the wrench clutched tight in his chest. They were inside.

Sabatine pulled him to his feet. They were standing in a cavernous loading bay, high enough to accommodate a truck. The only light filtered weakly from the foot-high gap under the shutter, painting the floor in a dirty grey stripe. The space was empty save for dust-covered machinery and a pair of freight elevators with scissor gates.

The sound of Jessica's voice was weak in the van and in their earpieces, struggling to pierce the dead zone. "I've lost direct heat. interference from the building's own generators. but the initial scan showed the command cluster in the sub-level. central vault complex. static. proceed with extreme."

The signal dissolved into hiss.

They truly were on their own now.

Sabatine drew his pistol, the suppressed muzzle a black hole in the gloom. He pointed to the left-hand freight elevator. Its gate was partially open. They approached silently. The elevator car was a cage of iron filigree, sitting at this level. Sabatine peered into the shaft. It plunged into darkness below, rose into shadow above. A thick, greasy cable hung motionless.

"No power to the elevators," he muttered. "Good. They won't expect us to come that way." He pointed to a maintenance ladder running up the side of the shaft. "We go down. To the sub-level."

The climb was a descent into a well of whispering echoes. The rungs were cold and slick. Anton went first, his injured arm making each downward step a fresh agony, his good hand gripping the wrench through a loop of cord around his wrist. Sabatine followed, covering the darkness below with his weapon.

They descended past one level, then another, the air growing colder, damper. The hum of the generators was louder here, a palpable vibration through the stone. Finally, Sabatine's boot touched solid ground. A small service platform. A heavy riveted door stood before them, stenciled Sous-sol 1 - Accès Restreint

This door featured a modern keypad, but its LED screen was unlit. Sabatine reached for the handle. It was locked, but it was a mechanical bolt. He applied a small, hydraulic jack from his pack to the space between door and frame, near the lock. With a low groaning whine, the metal buckled and the bolt sheared with a loud crack that seemed catastrophically loud in the confined space.

They froze, listening. No alarm. No shouts. Only the ceaseless thrum of the generators.

Sabatine pushed the door open a crack. Beyond was a corridor, lit by the dim, battery-powered emergency lights that had engaged after Rico's sabotage. The walls were smooth, poured concrete. It felt less like a bank and more like a nuclear bunker.

This was the heart of the fortress. And they were inside its ribs.

Sabatine looked back at Anton, his face etched in the weak red glow of an exit sign. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The question was there, in his eyes: Ready?

Anton tightened his grip on the wrench; his eyes, too, glowed red, like embers. One firm nod of his head came-and went. Undeniably. Only determination.

Side by side they wriggled through the steel maw into the guts of the beast.

Moral, religious, and spiritual approaches are some of the ethical principles that help in coming up with a theory on an ethical issue.