Chapter 9 - The Chase Through the Core
The metal bin crashed against the gunman’s shin, throwing his aim off by a fraction of a second. The silenced weapon barked once, the bullet splintering the wood paneling right beside my ear in a shower of white dust.
“Run!” Daniel screamed, scrambling backward on his hands and knees.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the leather briefcase containing the forgery evidence, vaulted over a sorting table, and sprinted down the cross-aisle toward the emergency service stairwell at the back of the core.
Behind us, the second operative opened fire, the rhythmic thip-thip-thip of suppressed rounds chewing through the metal filing cabinets like paper, sending cascades of old tax records and audit reports flying into the red-tinted air.
“They’re behind us!” Daniel yelled, panting heavily as he stumbled behind me, his expensive Italian loafers slipping on the scattered papers.
I reached the heavy fire door at the end of the hall, slammed my shoulder against the push-bar, and shoved it open. We tumbled through into the echoing concrete stairwell just as another round ricocheted off the steel frame with a deafening screech.
“Down or up?” Daniel gasped, gripping the handrail, his chest heaving as sweat poured down his face.
“Up,” I said, slamming the fire door shut and engaging the mechanical deadbolt lock built into the heavy latch. “The ground floor exits are bottlenecked. If they have the lobby, we’re fish in a barrel. We need the roof helipad access.”
“The helipad is locked! You need a biometric override!”
“My father had a manual override installed in the penthouse machinery room on fifty,” I snapped, already taking the concrete steps three at a time, my heels clicking frantically against the grey steps.
For the next ten minutes, we climbed. Fifty stories of spiral concrete stairs, our lungs burning, the distant sound of heavy boots echoing up from the levels below us as the syndicate enforcers systematically breached the stairwell doors one by one.
When we finally reached the heavy steel door marked PENTHOUSE MECHANICAL ACCESS, I threw myself against it, pulling a small silver emergency key out from the lining of my jacket lapel—a backup key my father had given me when I was sixteen, telling me that doors only stay locked if you let other people hold the keys.
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I slid it into the rusted keyhole, turned it hard to the left, and heard the heavy internal tumblers give way with a satisfying, metallic snap.
We tumbled into the dark, humming machinery room just as the stairwell door below us blew open with a violent crash.
