Chapter 17 - THE FOUNDATION OF ASHES
A heavy, metallic thud reverberated through the ceiling of the vault.
The steel door at the end of the stone corridor slammed shut with a sickening hydraulic hiss.
Christian lunged toward the exit, Julian right behind him.
He slammed his shoulder into the steel slab and grabbed the manual locking wheel.
It refused to turn.
On the other side of the door, the mechanical interlock had been engaged from an external override switch Leopold had installed in case of flood or fire.
"The ventilation vents," Julian shouted, coughing as a pale, odorless haze began pouring through the overhead grates.
It was not smoke.
It was Halon gas—the automated fire suppression system designed in the 1980s to protect the paper archives by displacing oxygen.
"They triggered the archival fire system remotely," Christian said, coughing violently as the air turned thin and suffocating.
"Owen!" Christian yelled into the tablet, but the subterranean walls and the sealed steel door had cut the radio signal completely.
Julian dropped to his knees, knowing that oxygen stayed closest to the stone floor.
"The manual pressure relief valve," Julian wheezed, pointing to a red-painted pipe near the base of the wall.
"Every Halon room is legally required to have an emergency exhaust."
Christian dropped to the floor, crawling toward the corner where the red pipe vanished into the bedrock.
His lungs burned, his vision swimming with dark spots.
He found the heavy iron lever mounted to the valve, locked in place with a lead safety seal.
Christian gripped the seal with his bare hands and twisted with all his remaining strength.
The wire bit deep into his palms, drawing warm blood, but the seal snapped.
With a guttural roar, Christian hauled the lever downward.
A violent rush of air erupted from the pipe as the pneumatic damper opened, venting the Halon gas out through the foundation’s drainage conduit.
Fresh air was sucked into the room through the micro-gaps around the door frame.
Christian slumped against the pipe, gasping for breath, coughing raggedly.
Julian crawled over to him, his small face pale and smeared with dust, but his eyes blazing with fierce clarity.
"We are alive," Julian choked out, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
"We are alive," Christian agreed, pulling his son into his arms for a brief, fierce second.
Then Christian stood up, grabbing an old iron pry bar from the tool rack on the archive wall.
"They tried to bury us with the evidence," Christian said, his voice cold as arctic ice.
"Now we take this evidence and we end them."
Christian wedged the heavy pry bar into the manual override gears behind the vault door's internal mechanism.
Using his full body weight, he leaned into the lever.
With a screech of shearing brass and popping rivets, the internal locking pin broke.
The heavy vault door creaked open two inches.
Christian shoved it wide, stepping out into the subterranean corridor with the 1982 ledger tucked firmly beneath his arm.
At the top of the stone stairs, the access hatch was thrown open.
Owen Vance appeared, a tactical pistol in hand, his face white with relief.
"Christian! Julian!" Owen shouted, reaching down to pull them up into the light.
"Elena Rousseau has left White Plains," Owen said quickly as they caught their breath in the kitchen pantry.
"And she isn't heading back to New York."
"Where is she going?" Christian demanded.
"She’s heading for the private hangar at Teterboro Airport," Owen replied.
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"And she’s taking Clara with her."
"A diplomatic extraction order was signed ten minutes ago by a federal magistrate."
