Chapter 9 - The Flood
"What did you do?!" Viktor screamed, his voice swallowed by the roaring wall of water crashing down into the corridor.
The force of the first wave hit us like a freight train.
I was slammed violently against the cold steel of the vault door. Cold, muddy river water rushed over my boots, instantly rising to my knees, then to my waist in a matter of seconds.
The two guards dropped their weapons in sheer panic, scrambling wildly toward the rusted iron ladder two hundred feet back down the tunnel.
"You crazy bastard!" Viktor roared. He leveled his revolver at my chest through the cascading water, his eyes wide with unhinged rage.
Before he could pull the trigger, a torrent of water exploded from an overhead duct directly above him, knocking him off his feet and washing him backward down the stone corridor. His gun splashed into the swirling, dark water and vanished instantly.
I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the unlinked laptop, shoved it into my waterproof tactical bag, and fought my way against the roaring current, dragging myself toward the escape ladder.
The water was rising with terrifying speed—chest-high now. The icy cold sank into my bones, stealing my breath, making my limbs feel heavy and sluggish.
Think, Julian! Think!
I grabbed a floating piece of wooden scaffolding, using it to push myself against the raging current toward the shaft.
Behind me, Viktor was screaming, splashing wildly, fighting against the torrent that was filling the subterranean chamber like a giant concrete bathtub.
I reached the rusted iron ladder just as the water level reached my neck.
I grabbed the cold metal rungs and pulled myself up with every ounce of strength left in my body.
One rung. Two rungs. Three rungs.
Below me, Viktor reached the base of the ladder, his hands desperately grasping at the iron bars.
"Hayes!" he gasped, spitting muddy water. "Pull me up! Help me!"
I looked down at the man who had ordered my children to be starved, who had threatened to murder my baby girl in her hospital bed, who had turned my life into a living nightmare.
"Look for the trapdoor, Viktor," I said, my voice cold as ice. "My father built that too."
I turned and climbed.
Behind me, the water swallowed the bottom fifty feet of the shaft completely, sealing the subterranean vault and everyone inside it under a hundred feet of churning river water.
I climbed up and up through the dark, wet vertical shaft, my lungs burning, my hands bleeding from jagged rust, until I finally saw a sliver of gray morning light above.
With a final, desperate heave, I pushed open the heavy iron access hatch at the top and collapsed onto the rain-soaked asphalt of the abandoned train depot.
I lay on my back, gasping for air, staring up at the gray morning sky as rain washed the mud and blood from my face.
Sirens were wailing in the distance. Dozens of them.
Red and blue emergency lights flashed across the wet concrete walls of the depot.
I forced myself up onto my elbows.
Surrounding the train depot were a dozen police cruisers, federal emergency vehicles, and an armored SWAT transport.
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Stepping out from behind the lead police cruiser was Detective Miller, flanked by a squad of heavily armed federal agents.
And standing right beside him, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her face pale but her eyes fierce, was Sarah.
