Chapter 15 - The Mine Shaft Skirmish-15
"Don't move, Mrs. Vance," the tactical operator hissed through his throat microphone, his voice a cold, mechanical rasp that sounded exactly like the operator from the Fresno terminal. He didn't point the weapon at Pendelton; his visor remained locked onto the leather journal and the industrial data tape sitting on the desk beside my hand. "Hand over the repository files. The Pan-Atlantic board has officially terminated your family's civil trust."
"The trust doesn't belong to the board, you coward," I said, my voice steady and cold as I kept my fingers wrapped around the heavy iron handles of the hydraulic override wheel. "It belongs to the State of Nevada. And the federal investigators are already clearing the mile marker 114 overpass as we speak."
The operator let out a sharp, mocking chuckle. "The overpass is a public state highway structure, Mrs. Margaret. Your son’s little sheriff's units can't touch the foundation pylons without a signed federal structural warrant from the Department of Transportation—a warrant that our political shareholders in the capital just tabled indefinitely fifteen minutes ago. You have no cards left to play."
He stepped forward, his gloved hand reaching down to grab the data tape from the desk.
"Now, Tom!" I screamed into the dark corridor.
Before the operator’s fingers could touch the plastic casing, Tom launched himself out from the shadow of the doorway behind him. He didn't use a gun or a flashlight; he carried a heavy, solid bronze stanchion post—the kind used to hold the velvet velvet guide ropes in the bank’s main lobby—that he had quietly unscrewed from the floorboards during the lockdown.
He swung the heavy bronze post with a brutal, single-minded force, catching the operator squarely across the forearms.
CRACK.
The automatic carbine flew from the operator’s broken grip, spinning across the marble floorboards until it slammed against the base of the safety deposit racks. The operator let out a sharp howl of pain, his night-vision visor flying off his helmet as he stumbled backward against the wall pylon.
But he was a highly trained state operator, funded by an international syndicate that didn't tolerate failure. He reached into his tactical vest, his hand emerging with a long, serrated military combat knife, lunging straight toward Tom’s chest with a terrifying, professional velocity.
I didn't think about my age, my dress, or my chronic joint pain. I threw my old body weight directly onto the red iron hydraulic wheel, spinning the master override valve a full ninety degrees into the open position.
May you like
With a deafening, high-pressure roar of compressed air, a massive stream of dark red hydraulic fluid blasted out from the ceiling vents directly over the operator's position. The slick, chemical-treated oil flooded his visor, blinding his vision and turning the marble floor boards into a treacherous sheet of pure grease.
The operator lost his footing, his boots sliding wildly through the pool of oil as Tom slammed the heavy bronze stanchion post down onto his collarbone, driving him heavily onto the ground and silencing his screams as the bank’s primary backup generator network finally flickered back to life, plunging the vault room into a bright, white light of absolute finality.
