Chapter 4 - The Blaze in the Tunnel
"Viktor!" I shouted.
"On it!" Viktor yanked his sidearm from his holster, pointing it up the concrete stairs, while his second guard sprinted up the steps and threw his weight against the steel door.
"It’s barred from the outside!" the guard yelled, pulling hard on the handle. "Thick steel bar! It won't budge!"
A sudden WHOOSH echoed through the heavy door as the gasoline ignited. Orange flames licked aggressively under the bottom seam, sending thick, toxic black smoke pouring into the enclosed stairwell.
Lily let out a terrified scream, burying her face into her mother’s blood-stained apron. Clara tried to drag herself up, but the pain caused her to slump back onto the concrete, gasping as the air quickly filled with soot.
"They're burning the evidence!" Viktor growled, pulling his shirt up over his nose. "Boss, this stairwell leads down to the old boiler room sub-basement, but it’s a dead end unless we have the maintenance key!"
"I bought this hotel, Viktor," I said, my eyes burning from the rapidly gathering smoke. "I spent three days studying the structural blueprints before signing the deed. The sub-basement connects to the old prohibition-era wine tunnels under 4th Street. There’s a service hatch leading out to the alley."
"Can you find it in the dark?" Viktor asked, ripping off his necktie and tying it around Lily’s mouth to protect her lungs.
"Follow me!"
Viktor lifted Clara into his arms despite her soft cries of pain, cradling her against his broad chest, while I scooped Lily into my arms. We sprinted down the remaining flight of concrete steps, descending deeper into the subterranean belly of the St. Jude Hotel.
Behind us, the fire above was raging, consuming the oxygen in the shaft and creating a massive draft that pushed thick, suffocating clouds of carbon monoxide down the stairs after us.
At the bottom of the landing, we hit a heavy wooden door bound in rusted iron.
"Stand back!" Viktor shouted. He raised his heavy tactical boot and kicked the lock with immense force.
CRACK.
The old oak splintered. Viktor kicked it a second time, shattering the frame, and we burst through into a long, damp brick corridor filled with rusted pipes and vintage wine racks dating back to the 1920s.
The air here was cold, smelling of earth and vintage mold, but it was breathable.
I set Lily down for a second, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Lily, stay close to me. Keep your head down."
"Mister..." she choked out, wiping her nose. "Are we gonna die?"
"Not tonight, kiddo," I said, looking her in the eyes. "Not on my watch."
I turned to Viktor. "The maintenance hatch is fifty yards down this corridor on the left. Once we get out into the alley, I need you to call the state police commissioner directly. Bypass the local precinct. Richard has local officers on his payroll."
"What about the security room?" Viktor asked, coughing as smoke began to creep into the tunnel behind us. "The camera footage of Marcus throwing Clara down the stairs... if Richard reaches the server room first, he’ll wipe the hard drives."
"He can't," I said, a grim smile touching my lips. "When I acquired the hotel group, I upgraded the security infrastructure. The local drives are dummy units. Every frame of video recorded in this building is live-streamed directly to a cloud server hosted in my private office in Manhattan."
I pulled out my phone. The signal was weak, but three bars of encryption were visible.
"While Richard is burning down his own hotel trying to destroy a hard drive," I continued, "I’m uploading the video of Marcus poisoning my glass and pushing Clara directly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Suddenly, a shadow detached itself from the gloom fifty feet ahead of us in the tunnel.
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A hand reached out from behind a concrete pillar, holding a heavy black revolver.
"You really should have just drunk the wine, Arthur," Richard’s voice echoed off the damp brick walls.
