Chapter 25 - Race Against Time
"Bruno! Bruno, report!" I shouted into the dead phone, but there was only static.
"They're jamming our satellite relays," Vincent said grimly, already pulling a heavy tactical carbine from a concealed wall locker behind his desk and tossing it to me. "The Alps facility has a private supersonic transport jet hidden in the hangar beneath us. It can get us back to California in under ten hours."
"Ten hours is too long," I snarled, checking the chamber of the carbine with a sharp, practiced click. "If the Zurich board has boots on the ground at my estate right now, my children and Sophie have minutes, not hours."
"Then we fight our way out of here first," Vincent said, a dark, dangerous glint returning to his eyes. The old mob boss hadn't lost his edge; he looked ready for war.
We moved as a coordinated unit—my father, myself, and the four tactical operatives—bursting out of the control room into the subterranean corridors of the Alpine bunker.
Alarms wailed overhead, flashing strobing amber lights across the concrete walls. As we reached the main elevator shaft leading up to the landing bay, a team of four Zurich mercenaries dropped from the upper maintenance hatch, their assault rifles raised.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Muscle memory took over. I raised the carbine, dropping the first operative with a clean double-tap to the chest, while Bruno's former men neutralized the remaining three in a flurry of disciplined gunfire.
We didn't stop to check the bodies. We scrambled up the steel service ladder three levels at a time until we punched through the heavy hydraulic hatch leading directly into the subterranean aircraft hangar.
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Parked in the center of the reinforced concrete bay was a sleek, matte-black supersonic jet, its twin jet turbines already whining as they spooled up to takeoff speed.
"Get on board!" Vincent ordered, covering our rear as we sprinted across the concrete.
