Chapter 14 - SHADOWS IN THE SNOWThe air inside the sealed mausoleum grew colder by the second. The thick marble walls absorbed what little body heat Alexander and Julian produced, and the steel deadbolt held the heavy bronze doors tight against the frame.
"Victoria!" Alexander shouted, slamming his shoulder against the door. The bronze didn't budge.
"Save your breath, Alex," her voice came through the intercom. "The mausoleum is airtight. In approximately forty minutes, the oxygen level will drop below sustaining limits. By the time the local police arrive to investigate a break-in, you will both have passed away quietly from hypothermia and hypoxia."
Julian collapsed against the base of his father's tomb, clutching his walking stick as a violent coughing fit seized him. "Alex... my chest..."
Alexander ran to his brother's side, kneeling in the frost. Julian’s lips were turning blue. The strain of the travel and the freezing temperature were accelerating his cellular vulnerability.
"Stay with me, Julian," Alexander ordered, pulling off his heavy winter coat and wrapping it around his brother's shoulders.
"No... keep your coat," Julian rasped. "You have to... get back to Tommy..."
Alexander ignored him, his mind racing through every survival variable. He looked at the heavy titanium cylinder he had pulled from the vault. It was sixteen inches long, made of solid aerospace-grade alloy, with a reinforced steel end-cap.
He grabbed the titanium cylinder, then ran to the back wall of the mausoleum where an ornate stained-glass window depicted the Morgan family crest. The window was framed by heavy lead casing, set fifteen feet above the floor.
Alexander pushed one of the marble benches beneath the window. Mounting the bench, he raised the heavy titanium tube over his head like a battering ram.
CRASH!
The titanium tube struck the thick lead frame of the window. Colored glass shattered, showering down onto the snow outside. Cold, fresh air rushed into the suffocating tomb.
"Julian, help me!" Alexander yelled.
Using the remaining frame of the broken window as a handhold, Alexander pulled himself up onto the stone ledge. He reached down, grabbing Julian by his arms, and hauled his brother up with every ounce of strength he possessed.
They tumbled out of the window, falling ten feet into a deep snowbank outside the mausoleum wall.
In the distance, two armed guards wearing Vance & Sterling security logos turned at the sound of the shattering glass, raising their rifles.
Before the guards could acquire their targets, a dark SUV burst through the cemetery's snow-covered pine hedges, its tires spinning wildly on the ice. The passenger door swung open, and Maria leaned out, firing two non-lethal shock rounds that dropped the guards into the snow.
"Get in!" Maria shouted over the roar of the engine.
Alexander dragged Julian into the backseat as the SUV accelerated out of the gates.
"How did you track us?" Alexander asked, breathless, rubbing warmth back into Julian’s arms.
"Tommy," Maria said, handing Alexander a satellite phone. "He realized Victoria Vance’s private jet logged a flight plan for Zurich three hours before she visited the reserve. He told me you were walking into a trap."
Alexander took the phone, his eyes burning with cold resolve. "Maria, contact our legal team in Washington. Tell them to issue an emergency injunction against Vance & Sterling."
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"And what are we doing?" Maria asked, swerving onto the highway toward the airport.
"We're flying back," Alexander said, unrolling the Project Avernus schematics across his lap. "Because my father didn't just build a mechanism to poison the city. He left a kill-switch."
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