Chapter 9 - THE CHASE THROUGH THE TUNNELS
9
The subterranean service tunnels beneath the Vance estate were originally constructed during the Cold War as a private fallout shelter, later retrograded by Ben into a secure tactical transit network connecting the main mansion to the private helipad and the highway exit three miles away. The air down here was damp, cold, and smelled heavily of ozone and concrete dust.
The armored extraction van roared through the narrow tunnel, its dual headlights cutting twin beams of harsh white light through the darkness, tires screeching against the polished concrete floor as it rounded a sharp ninety-degree curve.
In the back of the van sat the two tactical operatives. One of them had a bleeding shoulder from David’s gunfire, but he ignored the pain as he kept his rifle trained on the rear doors. Across from them, Ella lay motionless on a padded bench, still unconscious from the sedative.
"We're five minutes from the extraction coordinates," the driver’s voice crackled over the vehicle’s intercom system. "The chopper is waiting in the ravine. Once we cross the county line, we're in the clear."
Before the driver could finish his sentence, a deafening screech of rubber echoed from the tunnel behind them.
The operatives spun around, peering through the small reinforced glass window in the rear doors of the van.
barreling down the narrow tunnel behind them at breakneck speed, headlights blazing high, was Ben’s personal armored Mercedes-Maybach.
"They're on us!" the wounded operative cursed, raising his rifle and aiming it toward the rear glass.
"Don't shoot the vehicle, shoot the tires!" the driver shouted over the engine roar. "If we stop in this tunnel, we're fish in a barrel!"
In the lead vehicle, Ben gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, his eyes locked on the red taillights of the extraction van ahead. His face was carved from stone, his heart pounding not with fear, but with the terrifying, razor-sharp adrenaline of a father hunting down the monsters who had stolen his child.
Beside him on the passenger seat lay a heavy tactical submachine gun and an open tactical interface displaying the real-time telemetry of the tunnel network.
"They're heading for the old drainage exit," David’s voice crackled over the car’s comms speaker from the command center back at the mansion. "Sir, the exit gate is rigged with a heavy hydraulic barricade. If they reach it before you intercept them, they’ll lock themselves out into the federal highway network and we'll lose them in the traffic."
"Not on my watch," Ben muttered through clenched teeth.
He slammed his foot down harder on the accelerator. The Maybach surged forward with terrifying speed, its heavy-duty reinforced steel bumper closing the gap between the two vehicles in a matter of seconds.
The extraction van swerved violently from side to side, trying to block Ben from overtaking them in the narrow tunnel, but the road was too confined.
CRASH!
Ben didn't brake. He deliberately rammed the rear bumper of the van, sending a shower of orange sparks flying across the concrete floor and rattling the teeth of the operatives inside.
"He's trying to spin us out!" the driver screamed, fighting the steering wheel as the van fishtailed dangerously close to the concrete retaining wall.
Ben didn't let up. He lined up his front bumper with the rear-quarter panel of the van, slammed the accelerator down all the way, and executed a classic tactical pit maneuver at sixty miles per hour.
The heavy armored van lost traction, spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees with a deafening screech of tearing metal, and slammed hard sideways against the reinforced concrete wall of the tunnel, coming to a sudden, violent stop that knocked both operatives unconscious instantly.
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The Maybach screeched to a halt just ten feet away, its engine roaring in the confined space.
Ben flung his door open before the dust had even settled, leaping out onto the concrete with his weapon drawn, sprinting directly toward the wrecked extraction van to pull his daughter out of the nightmare.
