Chapter 226: The Labyrinth Below

The corridor beyond the broken door was a study in sterile, oppressive geometry. The poured concrete walls absorbed sound, turning the thrum of the distant generators into a vibration in the teeth. The emergency lights spaced every twenty feet cast tiny pools of sickly yellow that made intervening darkness seem absolute. Air was cold, processed, and carried a faint chemical scent—ozone from electronics, and something else, sharp and astringent, like industrial cleaner.

The body low to the ground, Sabatine moved like a breath. His senses parsing the silence. Anton followed, his boots barely more than a whisper on the smooth concrete. The wrench in his hand felt absurd and essential, a crude tool in this high-tech crypt.

Jessica's voice was gone, swallowed by the comms blackout and the dense structure of the building. Blind in all but name, they were feeling their way through Kaine's lair of steel intestines.

The first corridor terminated in a T-junction. Left or right? No signs. Sabatine took the left, following the slight crescendo of the generator thrum. The corridor curved lightly to the left, then opened up into a larger space—a server room. Racks of silently blinking machinery lined the walls, their status LEDs a star map of stuck green and amber in the gloom. The air in here was decidedly warmer, humming with residual heat. This was the brain of the whole operation, asleep now.

They edged round the room, keeping in the shadow of the walls. A doorway on the opposite side showed a chink of light. Sabatine peered through. Another corridor, identical to the first.

"It's a radial design," Anton said in barely more than a whisper. "Like a spoke and wheel. Central hub with vaults or command centre, service corridors radiating out. We need to find the hub."

Sabatine nodded. They continued on, the maze opening up. They went by a deserted guard post, a monitor screen dark, a half-finished cup of coffee condensation-beaded on the desk. They passed a small armory behind a locked gate - Sabatine bypassed it in seconds, but they took nothing, speed was of essence. They passed a humming climate control station, its vents sighing cold air.

The sense of dislocation grew. Every corridor looked the same. Every junction offered identical choices. Time began to warp, stretching and compressing in the unchanging twilight. Five minutes felt like an hour. Anton's shoulder screamed with a persistent, grinding pain. The prototype in his pocket felt heavier with each step, a lodestar pulling them deeper into the labyrinth.

Then Sabatine froze, his arm snapping out to bar Anton's chest. He pointed down at the floor ahead, where their path was bisected by a thin, almost invisible beam of red light, ankle-high, spanning the corridor from small emitters set into the walls.

"Laser tripwire," Sabatine breathed. "Not connected to the main power. Battery backup. Silent alarm."

They hadn't sprung it. But it was there. The maze wasn't passive; it was watched. Kaine's people knew the building was compromised. They were waiting.

Sabatine stepped carefully over the beam and motioned for Anton to follow his example. They went forward, if anything even more cautiously now, scanning literally every foot of wall and floor. They found two more tripwires in the next fifty yards, each of them equally cleverly placed at natural choke points or changes in elevation.

The labyrinth was becoming a gauntlet.

They came to another junction. It felt different. The noise of the generators was louder here, a deep, subaudible pulse that seemed to vibrate in the chest. And the air held a new smell—hot metal, coffee, and the faint, acrid scent of human sweat.

Sabatine raised a fist. He put his finger to his ear, then jerked his hand down the right-hand corridor. Very faintly, they could make out the murmur of voices. Muffled, tight.

He gestured to a service alcove—a recess housing a fire hose and extinguisher. They slipped into it, pressing themselves against the cold wall. Sabatine risked a glance around the corner.

The corridor ended twenty feet away in a set of double steel doors, riveted and imposing. A vault door, or the entrance to the command centre. Flanking it were two men in tactical gear, but they looked less like vigilant sentries and more like uneasy conscripts. One was pacing a short line, rubbing his neck. The other leaned against the wall, checking his watch.

"They're waiting for something," Sabatine said in a whisper, retreating once more. "Orders. Updates. They know the comms are down. They're static."

"Can we go around?" Anton mouthed.

Sabatine shook his head, radial design, this was probably the primary spoke, the other corridors led into auxiliary spaces, more server rooms, generators, this was a way in toward the center.

Then, from the direction they'd come, a new sound. A soft, electronic chirp, followed by a quiet, automated voice speaking in Swiss German. "Sensorbereich verletzt. Sektor sieben."

Sensor tripped. Sector seven.

One of the guards at the door straightened, his hand going to his earpiece. He heard nothing, of course. But the silent alarm had a local, battery-powered auditory alert for the guards themselves.

"Verdammt," the other guard growled. "That's the third false positive since the power cut. The system's ghosting."

"Or someone's in the pipes," the first one replied, unslinging his weapon. "We should check it."

"Orders are to hold the core. Kaine said no one breaks position. Let the roaming team handle it."

The guards tightened into a silent vigil, but their alertness had now turned full-circle down the corridor back into the maze-the direction of the triggered sensor.

Sabatine's mind was racing. The sensor they'd passed… had they tripped it? A pressure plate they'd overlooked? Or was it Rico's work, causing feedback in the independent systems? It didn't matter. It generated noise, attracted attention.

But it also created an opportunity. The guards' focus was down the other corridor; the path to the vault doors-for a few precious seconds-was unobserved.

He turned to Anton, threw a two-fingered salute, and then pointed first at the guards, then at himself. I take them. Then he pointed at the vault doors, and finally back at Anton. You get to the door.

Anton's eyes widened. He shook his head minutely. It was suicide.

Sabatine's look was iron. It was the only play. He pointed again, more insistently. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out a small, cylindrical object—a smoke grenade, but not for obscuring vision. It was a thermal smoke, designed to bloom hot and fast, screwing with infrared and thermal sensors. He handed it to Anton, pointed at the door then mimed throwing it at the guards' feet once Sabatine moved.

Understanding dawned in Anton's eyes, along with a fresh wave of dread. But he took the grenade, his fingers closing around the cool metal pin.

Sabatine gave his wrist a final, brief squeeze. Then he was gone, melting back into the deeper shadow of the alcove and across the corridor into the opposite recess.

Anton watched, his heart a trapped bird against his ribs. Sabatine seemed to move like oil on water, disappearing from one patch of darkness into the next, edging closer and closer to the distracted guards.

Time bled away, every second a drop of acid. The guard who had wished to investigate the sensor took a step down the corridor, peering into the gloom. "I don't like this. It's too quiet."

"Just stay put," the other growled, but he too was glancing nervously down the dark lane.

Sabatine was ten feet away from them, a phantom pressed against the wall. He turned toward Anton and gave a quick, sharp nod.

Now.

Anton pulled the pin on the thermal grenade and, with a smooth, underhand motion, rolled it down the centre of the corridor. It clattered softly on the concrete.

Both guards spun, weapons rising. "What the—

The grenade erupted at their feet not with smoke, but with a blinding, hissing flare of bright white light and a burst of superheated gas. It was like a miniature sun going off in the corridor. The guards cried out, stumbling back, their nightadapted vision obliterated, their thermal scopes overloaded.

It was in the midst of that globally stunning, painful confusion that Sabatine struck.

He was a blur of motion. In two strides, he closed the distance. The screwdriver was in his hand. A swift, brutal thrust to the neck of the first guard, who was clawing at his eyes. The man gurgled, collapsing. The second, halfblind, swung his weapon wildly. Sabatine ducked under it, came up inside his guard and drove the screwdriver up under his ribs, into his heart. A choked gasp, then silence.

It was over in less than five seconds. Brutal. Efficient. Final.

Sabatine straightened, panting, his weapon red. He looked at Anton and jerked his head toward the vault doors. He emerged from the alcove, wrench clutched tight. Tried not to look at the two bodies at Sabatine's feet, at the dark pools spreading out on the concrete. This was it, the cost. This was the war. 

They arrived at the massive doors. There was no keypad here, but a huge, spoked wheel, like on a hatch in a ship, and a biometric scanner—a retinal reader—its glass eye dark and dead. "Mechanical lock," Sabatine said, peering at the wheel. "Probably engaged when the power failed. A deadbolt system." He put his shoulder against one of the spokes and heaved. Nothing.

 "Help me." Anton set his wrench down and added his weight, his good shoulder protesting. Together they strained. The wheel resisted, then gave a fraction with a metallic shriek of protest. They pushed again, muscles corded, breath coming in grunts. And with agonising resistance the great wheel started to turn. With a final, thunderous clunk, the internal bolts retracted. 

Sabatine reached for the heavy latch and pulled. The vault door, a foot thick of solid steel and composite, swung inward silently on perfectly balanced hinges. Warm, bright-lit air washed over them carrying the scent of coffee, hot electronics, and a tense, waiting silence. They were on the threshold, stargazing into the very heart of the labyrinth.

 The central command centre of the Banque Lombard vault lay before them-a vast, circular room lit by the glow of dozens of monitors on standby power, dominated by a huge, antique mahogany table. And around that table, or standing at consoles, were eight men and women, all in various states of readiness, all frozen in the act of turning to face the breached door. 

At the head of the table, leaned back in a high-backed leather chair as if at a board meeting, was Elias Kaine. His pale eyes found Sabatine first, then Anton. There was no surprise in them. Only a cold, weary acknowledgement, as if they were late for an appointment he'd long since grown tired of waiting for. 

"Mr. Stalker," Kaine said, his voice even, nearly friendly in the abrupt, complete silence. "Mr. Rogers. You located the boardroom. How. enterprising. 

The maze was behind them. Now, they had to face the minotaur. 

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