Chapter 4 - The Betrayal at Vault 404"Put the gun down, Robert," Eleanor said, stepping directly between my father’s pistol and me without a trace of fear. "You are in a high-security Swiss bank. You will never leave this country alive."
"I don't care about leaving legally!" Robert laughed wildly. "Once I have the drive inside that box, I sell the formula to the Russian syndicate waiting at the airfield. I'll have two hundred million dollars and a new identity before the sun sets!"
Karen stepped out from behind the tactical guards, wearing a heavy winter coat, her face twisted with greed. "Give us the key, Emily! Give it to us now or your precious grandmother dies right here!"
I stood in front of the open vault door, clutching the obsidian box to my chest. My heart was hammering, but looking at my father's desperate, pathetic face, something inside me changed. The fear that had kept me quiet for eighteen years suddenly turned into pure, burning rage.
"You took my mother from me," I said, my voice cold and steady. "You locked me out in the snow. You tried to ruin my future, my scholarship, my entire life."
"You were a mistake!" Robert sneered, raising the gun directly at my forehead. "Your mother was a fool, and you're just like her! Hand over the box!"
"No," I said softly.
Robert pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The shot echoed deafeningly in the stone corridor. But the bullet didn't hit me.
Director Hoffmann had pressed a concealed emergency button under the wall panel. A massive, heavy blast door dropped from the ceiling with blinding speed, severing the corridor. The bullet smashed harmlessly against the reinforced steel door, sparking bright in the dim light.
On our side of the blast door, we were safe—for now. But the bank’s lockdown system had triggered. Red light filled the vault chamber, and a automated computer voice began counting down:
"Containment protocol initiated. Vault level sealing in 180 seconds. Oxygen evacuation commencing."
"We have three minutes to get out before the automated system drains the air from this vault!" Director Hoffmann yelled, panic cracking his voice.
Eleanor grabbed my arm. "Emily, open the box! Now!"
My hands flew over the obsidian container. There was a small digital keypad built into its base.
"What's the code?" I cried out. "Mother never gave me a code!"
"Think, Emily!" Eleanor urged, looking at the countdown timer on the wall: 120 seconds. "Your mother loved you more than anything. What was the one thing she told you before she died?"
I closed my eyes, tuning out the blaring alarms and the muffled sound of Robert’s men drilling against the blast door outside. I searched my memories, going back to the dark room when I was seven years old, sitting by my mother's bedside.
“When you turn eighteen, call your grandmother... Midnight will reveal the truth...”
"The date," I whispered, opening my eyes. "The exact minute I was born."
I quickly typed into the keypad: 12-25-00-00—Midnight on Christmas Day.
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CLICK.
The obsidian lid popped open. Inside lay not just a flash drive containing the multi-billion-dollar patent... but a micro-cassette tape labeled in my mother's neat handwriting: "IN CASE OF MY UNTIMELY DEATH."
