Chapter 5 - The Ambush"Security! Status!" Michael yelled, pulling out his flashlight and shining it toward the stairs.
Static crackled over the radio of one of the private security guards. "Team Leader, this is perimeter guard two! We’ve been ambushed! Two armed vehicles just blocked the main gate! They cut the power lines!"
A cold voice echoed down the stairwell through an intercom speaker built into the wall.
"You really couldn't just take the divorce settlement and walk away, could you, Iris?"
It was Jason’s voice. He was out on emergency bail.
Iris stepped forward into the beam of the flashlight, looking up toward the speaker. "You're making a mistake, Jason. The SEC already has your financial records. The news is everywhere."
"The news only knows what your little court performance told them!" Jason shouted back, his voice distorted through the speaker. "The people in those journals—the senators, the judges, the commissioners—they won't let me fall! If I go down, I burn every single one of them to the ground! They just posted my $5 million bail three hours ago because they couldn't afford to leave me in a cell!"
"They can't save you from what’s on these hard drives!" Michael warned.
"They don't have to save me from the drives if the drives—and everyone who knows about them—disappear in a fire tonight!" Jason snarled.
A heavy metallic hiss echoed through the wine cellar.
"He’s pumping fuel gas through the ventilation system!" the security guard shouted, smelling the pungent fumes immediately. "We need to break out now! If a spark ignites in here, the whole basement will explode!"
"The emergency exit!" Iris said, her mind working furiously. "When we built our first home, Jason always demanded a secondary escape route in every basement design due to his paranoia. Check behind the main wine rack!"
The security guards rushed to the heavy oak wine rack at the far corner of the room. They threw their combined weight against it, forcing it aside to reveal a small, rusted iron service ladder leading straight up through an old maintenance shaft.
"Go! Go!" Michael urged, pushing Iris toward the ladder.
The fumes were growing thicker, making them cough violently. One of the security guards pulled out an emergency breaching tool and forced the heavy iron hatch at the top of the ladder open.
They scrambled up into the crisp night air of the backyard just as a blue spark flashed inside the basement below.
BOOM!
A deafening shockwave erupted from the cellar vents, blowing out the ground-floor windows of the estate in a shower of glass and flame.
Iris tumbled onto the wet grass, coughing, her skin dusted with ash. She looked up through the smoke to see a black SUV speeding away down the long driveway into the dark forest.
"He’s heading for his private airfield!" Michael yelled, picking himself up. "He’s trying to leave the country!"
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Iris stood up, wiping the soot from her face, her eyes burning with pure determination.
"Not tonight," she said. "Not ever again."
