Chapter 19 - The Skyscraper Blackout
The city lights outside didn't illuminate the room.
Heavy, motorized steel security shutters slammed down over the massive glass panels of the observation deck with a deafening series of thuds—*CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.*—sealing the entire fortieth floor into an impenetrable, soundproof tomb.
The emergency back-up lights didn't flicker on.
Total, suffocating, absolute blackness.
The exact same tactical blackout that Ryan had used to terrorize me in the apartment. But Ryan wasn't here.
From the darkness across the room, Evelyn let out a ragged, panting laugh despite the agony in her wrist. "You think... you think you're the only one who had a trap prepared tonight, Clara?"
I froze, lowering my center of gravity, listening intently. My tactical penlight was in my coat pocket, but turning it on would make me an immediate target.
"Who else is in this building, Evelyn?" I demanded, my voice low, slowly sidestepping away from where I had been standing.
"The Cerberus protocol wasn't just a financial program," Evelyn whispered from the dark, her voice moving toward the perimeter. "It was an operational contract. Did you really think eighty-four million dollars was going to a bank account? It was paying the retainer for Vance's old security extraction team. They don't leave witnesses, Clara. Not me. And certainly not you."
A heavy, metallic thud echoed from the stairwell fire door thirty yards away.
*Clank.*
The hydraulic handle was turning.
I moved immediately. Silent, deliberate footsteps, gliding along the wall toward the server room alcove on the north side of the floor. My eyes strained against the ink-black void, but years of studying architectural blueprints kicked in. The Vance-Sterling Tower had been designed around a central core utility column: elevators, high-voltage conduits, and the private fiber-optic junction box.
If Evelyn’s private contractors were breaching the floor, they would have night-vision optics. Light discipline didn't matter if they had thermal imaging—I needed to get behind heat-masking infrastructure.
The fire door creaked open.
Two faint, green-phosphor beams cut through the gloom. Soft, rubber-soled combat boots tapped against the concrete floor. No words. No shouted commands. Just the cold, methodical breathing of professional wet-work operatives.
"Target Evelyn Cross is non-essential," a flat, synthesized voice muttered over a tactical headset. "Primary objective is the Sterling Master Drive and the daughter. Terminate with prejudice."
"Wait!" Evelyn’s voice shrieked from the darkness near the elevator bank. "I hired you! The funds are being routed to your accounts right now—"
A sharp, muffled *phut-phut* echoed across the concrete.
A heavy body collapsed to the floor with a wet thud, followed by the sound of heels drumming briefly against the concrete, then stillness.
They had executed Evelyn without a second of hesitation.
Cold terror surged through my veins, but it didn't paralyze me. It transformed into pure adrenaline. Evelyn had unleashed monsters she couldn't control, and now they were sweeping the floor for me.
*Thermal optics,* I thought rapidly. They would look for human body heat.
I reached out blindly in the dark, my fingers grazing the cold metal handle of a commercial carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher mounted on the structural pillar next to me.
I unlatched it silently.
The green-tinted tactical beams were sweeping toward the central desk, illuminating Evelyn’s lifeless body sprawled across the floor, her blood pooling around the shattered glass of the whiskey decanter.
"One down," the synthesized voice said. "Daughter is unaccounted for. Sweep the server alcove."
The two operatives moved in tandem, their assault rifles raised, night-vision goggles mounted to their tactical helmets. They were ten paces from my position.
Five paces.
Three paces.
I stepped out from behind the pillar, pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher, and squeezed the trigger full force directly into the path of the lead operative.
A deafening roar of sub-zero carbon dioxide gas erupted into the darkness, creating a blinding, swirling cloud of frozen mist that dropped the ambient temperature by forty degrees in an instant.
Thermal optics are blinded by extreme cold. To their high-tech goggles, the room instantly turned into a chaotic, white-out blizzard of zero-visibility infrared static.
"Blind! Thermal blinded!" the lead operative yelled, ripping the goggles off his face.
I didn't wait. I swung the heavy steel base of the fire extinguisher with every ounce of strength in my body, striking the second operative across his tactical helmet. The impact rang like a church bell, knocking him off balance and sending his rifle skittering across the floor.
The first operative spun toward me, drawing a combat knife from his chest rig, slashing blindly through the white fog.
The blade sliced through the sleeve of my trench coat, biting into the flesh of my upper arm. Pain flared white-hot, but I didn't stop. I jammed the nozzle of the fire extinguisher straight into his throat, hitting the discharge lever again. The blast of compressed freezing gas caught him full in the face, sending him choking and stumbling backward over the edge of the central desk.
May you like
I grabbed the dropped tactical rifle from the floor, spun around, and sprinted toward the only route left: the service elevator shaft.
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