Chapter 6 - THE PHANTOM OF BLACKWOOD
Z
The air inside the ancient stone escape tunnel was dry, freezing, and tasted of dust and crushed limestone. My flashlight beam cut through the dark, illuminating the smooth arches of eighteenth-century craftsmanship interlocked with modern steel reinforcement plates I had installed three years ago.
Above me, the faint, dull thuds of breaching charges echoed through the rock. Vance's men were blowing the hinges off the upper cellar doors.
In ten minutes, they would break into the wine cellar. They would find Arthur, Margaret, and Julian shivering in the dark, terrified, with nowhere left to run.
And when Vance realized Julian didn't have the four million dollars, and that I wasn't in that room to sign over the deed to the Obsidian Abbey, he would make a choice. He would either execute them on the spot, or he would use them as bait to draw me out.
I stopped at the three-hundred-foot mark inside the tunnel, standing in front of a heavy steel utility junction box built into the wall. I opened it. Inside were the master physical overrides for the Abbey’s environmental, security, and power distribution systems—the true heart of the mountain.
I wasn't running away.
I had never intended to escape down the mountain on a snowmobile. The storm outside was a Level 5 whiteout; trying to navigate Blackwood Pass on a snowmobile in zero visibility was guaranteed suicide.
This mountain was my home. The Abbey was my body. And I was about to turn my body into a death trap.
I reached into the box and flipped the manual breaker for the SECONDARY GENERATOR RESERVES.
Deep beneath the mountain, two massive six-cylinder diesel engines—isolated in a soundproofed vault two levels below the kitchen—roared to life with a deep, resonant vibration that I felt through the soles of my boots.
Power didn't return to the chandeliers or the warm decorative lamps in the foyer. Instead, I routed every single kilowatt of electricity directly into three specific systems: the perimeter security floodlights, the industrial ventilation blowers, and the smart-glass tinting network installed throughout the entire resort.
I grabbed my radio, switched to the hardwired security channel connected to the main house inter-coms, and pulled the microphone to my lips.
"Vance," I said. My voice echoed through every speaker built into the ceilings of the grand hall, the corridors, and the wine cellar above. "I hope you like the cold."
Upstairs, in the grand hall, the temperature was already plummeting. With the front double doors shattered and the blizzard howling through the main entrance, the grand hall was currently minus ten degrees Celsius.
Suddenly, across every floor-to-ceiling thermal window in the grand hall, the smart-glass electro-chromic layer activated. The clear glass instantly turned a solid, opaque, jet-black, cutting off what little ambient blue light was coming from the snowy night outside.
The interior of the Obsidian Abbey was plunged into pitch-black, absolute darkness—a darkness so thick you couldn't see your own hand two inches from your face.
At the same moment, I activated the industrial ventilation blowers in reverse.
Instead of circulating warm air, the massive intake vents on the roof pulled the screaming, sub-zero blizzard gale directly into the building’s duct system, pumping horizontal clouds of freezing fog and ice crystals into the narrow corridors at fifty miles per hour.
Over the intercom, I could hear the immediate chaos through the security microphones.
"What the hell is this?!" a mercenary screamed over the comms. "My light can't cut through this fog! It's blinding!"
"Boss! The windows went black! I can't see the courtyard!"
"Stay together!" Vance’s sharp, angry voice cut through the static. "Find the generator! Shut it down!"
"She's in the walls!" another voice yelled, panic creeping into his tone. "The sound is coming from everywhere!"
Inside the escape tunnel, I unlatched a secondary wall hatch that led into the HVAC distribution hub—a network of wide, insulated steel ducts running directly above the main hallways of the ground floor.
I squeezed inside, pulling myself forward on my elbows, moving like a ghost above the heads of the men who had come to burn my life to the ground.
Through the ventilation grates below me, I could see the swinging beams of their tactical flashlights cutting through the thick, frozen white fog filling the west wing hallway. Three mercenaries were moving in a tight wedge formation, their automatic rifles raised, their boots sliding precariously on the ice-covered slate floor.
The ice-cold water I had sprayed from the fire suppression system ten minutes ago had completely frozen into a slick, treacherous glass layer across the entire floor.
They were shivering violently, their breath blooming in massive white clouds. Their fingers, slick with frozen anti-freeze, were stiffening on their triggers. Tactical gear was designed for urban breaches, not prolonged exposure to sub-zero mountain conditions inside a wind-tunnel.
They were fighting the mountain now. And the mountain belonged to me.
I positioned myself directly above the lead mercenary. I quietly unlatched the emergency access pins on the ventilation grate beneath my chest.
I pulled the Glock 19 from my holster.
I didn't shoot. A gunshot would give away my exact position in the ceiling duct.
Instead, I reached into my tactical vest, pulled out a heavy, steel-headed drywall hammer I had left in the maintenance duct during repairs last week, and dropped it straight through the open grate.
The two-pound steel hammer fell twelve feet, striking the lead mercenary directly on the top of his helmet with a sickening CRACK.
The force snapped his neck back. He crumpled like a sack of stones, his rifle clattering against the icy slate.
"Marcus!" the man behind him yelled, dropping to one knee and aiming his rifle upward toward the ceiling. "She's in the roof!"
He opened fire. Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch!
Suppressed 9mm rounds punched through the sheet-metal duct. I scrambled backward through the duct like a lizard, bullets tearing through the metal inches from my legs, sending hot sparks showering across my face.
I didn't stop. I navigated the duct network by memory, taking two quick turns toward the kitchen junction.
Below me, in the commercial kitchen, two more mercenaries were standing guard near the cellar door, trying to use a portable plasma torch to cut through the heavy iron lock.
The smell of burning iron and molten metal filled the air, mixing with the cold fog blowing from the ceiling vents.
Inside the cellar, behind that iron door, my family was screaming.
"Hurry up with that torch!" one of the guards shouted, stomping his feet to stay warm. "It's freezing down here! My fingers are going numb!"
"This iron is three inches thick!" the welder yelled back over the hiss of the plasma flame. "It’s high-carbon steel! It takes time!"
I took a deep breath, resting my forehead against the cold metal of the air duct above them.
I could drop down behind them. I could shoot both of them in the back. I had the angle. I had the surprise.
I reached for the duct latch above the kitchen counters.
Then, Vance's voice echoed from the kitchen entryway.
"Stop cutting," Vance commanded smoothly.
The hiss of the plasma torch cut off. The yellow glare vanished, leaving only the weak, swinging beams of their flashlights in the foggy darkness.
Vance stepped into the kitchen. He wasn't carrying a rifle. He carried a heavy, nickel-plated revolver in his gloved right hand. He looked cold, his expensive trench coat dusted with frost, but his face was completely impassive—a mask of pure, sociopathic resolve.
"Boss?" the welder asked, wiping frost from his goggles. "We're halfway through the upper bolt."
"It doesn't matter," Vance said, leaning against the stainless-steel prep table. He raised his head, looking up toward the dark ceiling vents, right toward where I was crouching in the dark.
"I know you're up there, Eleanor," Vance said, his voice echoing off the stainless steel appliances. "You're very impressive. Truly. Most people in your position would have cried, paid, or died. You've managed to turn a boutique hotel into a butcher shop. I admire that."
I remained dead silent, my finger resting on the trigger of the Glock, holding my breath.
"But you see," Vance continued, turning his body slowly toward the cellar door, "you made one fundamental mistake. You think this is about the money."
He tapped the nickel-plated revolver against the heavy iron door frame with a slow, rhythmic clink... clink... clink.
"Four million dollars is a lot of money to Julian," Vance said softly. "To me, it's a line item on an end-of-year tax ledger. I didn't drive up Blackwood Peak in a Level 5 blizzard for four million dollars, Eleanor. I drove up here because if a weak, pathetic parasite like your brother can steal from me and run to his sister's mountain without consequences, my entire reputation crumbles."
Vance smiled—a cold, terrifying sight through the ice-fog.
"I don't need your deed anymore, Eleanor," Vance whispered. "I don't need your thumbprint. I'm going to set fire to the utility core of this building using three gallons of thermite. The storm will feed the flames. The mountain will consume the ash. And when the police finally dig this place out in three days, they'll find five charred bodies buried under ten feet of ice and rubble. A tragic family accident in a remote storm."
He turned to his lead enforcer. "Bring the thermite canisters from SUV two."
My heart stopped. Thermite burned at four thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It would melt through concrete, steel, and stone. It would vaporize the utility core, ignite the timber framing inside the stone walls, and turn the Obsidian Abbey into a roaring furnace that no blizzard on earth could extinguish.
Everything I had built. Everything I was. Erased.
"And boss?" the enforcer asked, pointing his flashlight toward the cellar door. "What about the three inside?"
May you like
Vance didn't even look back as he turned toward the door.
"Leave them in the dark," Vance said casually. "Let them cook."
