Chapter 7 - THE ESCAPE FROM THE ESTATEThick, pale green plumes of inert halon gas hissed from the ceiling vents, instantly filling the office with a suffocating fog.
"Are you insane?!" James coughed, staggering backward as the heavy gas burned his lungs. He raised his radio, barking frantically into the receiver. "Extraction team abort! The target has triggered a localized facility lockdown! Get the chopper on the roof—NOW!"
"Marcus, grab the baby! Put the gas mask on her!" Eleanor yelled over the roaring alarm klaxons, tossing a spare tactical respirator to the doctor.
She kept the shotgun leveled at James, firing one final warning blast into the ceiling above his head, raining plaster down on his shoulders. Under the cover of the thick, billowing fog, Eleanor grabbed the micro-SD card from the desk, tucked the locket into her pocket, and sprinted toward the hidden corridor behind the bookcase.
"Marcus, move!"
They plunged into the dark, narrow emergency tunnel just as the heavy steel bulkhead door slammed shut behind them, sealing off the office with an earth-shattering THUD.
The tunnel was pitch black, lit only by the faint, pulsing red glow of emergency floor strips. They scrambled down the steep concrete steps, the sound of their heavy boots echoing in the confined space. Behind them, muffled by feet of reinforced concrete, they could hear the distant roar of a helicopter rotor blades spinning up on the estate's private rooftop landing pad.
"They're escaping by air!" Marcus panted, clutching the baby against his chest as they burst out into the damp, cold night air of the private boathouse down by the lake.
Parked at the wooden dock was Eleanor’s high-speed Cigarette motorboat, ready for emergency transport.
"Get in the boat," Eleanor ordered, her voice cutting through the wind. She unclipped a heavy electronic key fob from her belt and leaped into the captain's seat, punching the ignition code into the dash.
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The twin supercharged engines roared to life with a deafening, thunderous bass note that shook the wooden dock.
As the boat shot away from the shore, cutting a violent wake across the dark, moonlit water of the lake, Eleanor looked back toward her estate. On the ridge above, the matte-black tactical helicopter lifted off the roof, its searchlights sweeping frantically across the dark water, hunting for them.
