Chapter 6 - Race Against the Clock
The old boat landing on the south shore of Lake Geneva was completely frozen over, the jagged ice groaning against the wooden pylons like dying animals.
Viktor Reznov was waiting beneath the rusted tin roof of an abandoned bait shop. He was sixty-eight years old, his beard entirely gray, wearing a heavy sheepskin coat and holding a thermal scanner. Two young, burly men in nondescript winter camouflage stood behind him, carrying Pelican cases.
"Vitals?" Viktor barked as Prescott slid the BearCat's side door open.
"Blythe’s pulse is one-forty and thready," Elena answered, stepping out into the biting wind, her breath billowing in white clouds. "Jonah's marrow is shutting down. We have less than ninety minutes before irreversible hemorrhagic shock sets in. If we don't synthesize the stabilizer and push it into their central lines, their blood won't clot. They'll bleed into their own lungs."
Viktor looked at the children through the glass of the pods. A muscle in his scarred jaw twitched. He had known Genevieve since she was a little girl running through my father’s summer gardens.
"Julian Croft is a dog," Viktor spit into the snow. "He brought eight men into the crypt. Four more are stationed at the perimeter gates. He has a mobile surgical unit parked in a heated trailer outside the cemetery chapel."
"Why a surgical unit?" I asked, checking the optic on my suppressed Sig Sauer MCX carbine.
Elena’s face went dead white. "Because he doesn't just want the stabilizer, Lawson. He knows the master strain Genevieve used was keyed to her own cell lines. The easiest way to reverse-engineer the commercial patent is to harvest fresh bone marrow directly from Jonah and Blythe while they're still breathing."
A red mist descended over my vision.
Julian Croft wasn't just planning to murder my children. He was planning to turn their dying bodies into his company's private biological mint.
"The crypt," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "How do we enter without triggering the perimeter sensors?"
"The old storm drain," Viktor said, pointing toward a frozen culvert thirty yards away. "Built in 1898. It runs beneath the Mercer family mausoleum to handle lake runoff. It brings you up through the maintenance grate directly beneath the bronze floorplate of your father’s vault. But Croft’s men have placed seismic sensors on the surface. You run, you shoot, you make a loud noise—they blow the vault seals."
"Then we don't make noise," I said.
I turned to Nurse Campbell. "Stay inside the BearCat with the kids. Keep the auxiliary heaters running. If anyone other than Viktor comes near this truck, use the deadbolt bypass and do not open it."
"Lawson," Elena said, grabbing my tactical vest. Her hands were trembling, but her gaze was ferocious. "Genevieve told me the sequence code. In case you couldn't access the console. It's Blythe and Jonah's birth weight in grams, followed by the date of your wedding."
I looked at her. "You risked your life to bring me this."
"Genevieve saved my sister's life five years ago," Elena whispered. "She gave up everything to stop Croft. Don't let her sacrifice be for nothing. Bring them back."
I nodded once, pulled down my balaclava, and clicked my night-vision goggles into place.
Prescott racked his weapon beside me. Viktor handed me two thermal flashbangs and a combat knife with a non-reflective ceramic blade.
"I will handle the perimeter guards quietly," Viktor said. "When you hear the church bells chime midnight, that is your window. You have four minutes before Croft’s outer team realizes their patrol check-ins are dead."
"Four minutes is three more than I need," I said.
We dropped into the freezing black mouth of the culvert.
The water was ankle-deep and choked with slush. The stench of wet limestone, sulfur, and dead leaves filled my throat. We moved with agonizing precision, our boots stepping carefully through the current to avoid splashing against the stone walls.
Above us, through the street-level iron grates, I could hear the low rumble of Croft's SUV engines idling in the cemetery driveway.
Through my headset, Prescott’s breathing was slow, mechanical, disciplined.
*Ten minutes to midnight.*
We reached the vertical iron ladder leading up to the Mercer mausoleum. Above us was the heavy cast-iron maintenance grate. Through the iron slats, I saw the dim, flickering glow of halogen work lights.
And then I heard the voice.
Smooth. Cultured. Unhurried.
"Careful with that pneumatic drill, you idiot," Julian Croft said. His voice echoed off the white Carrara marble of the tomb. "If you crack the seal on Genevieve’s sarcophagus, the temperature differential will destroy the lipid nanoparticles in the vials. Lawson's father had this crypt engineered to withstand a nuclear blast. We need the biometric console intact."
"The retinal scanner won't engage, Mr. Croft," a technician replied nervously. "The system requires an active pulse. We can't spoof it with a photograph."
"We won't need to spoof it," Croft replied, his voice dripping with condescending confidence. "Lawson will be here within the hour. When his children start vomiting blood, he will crawl through those bronze doors on his knees and press his eyeball against that scanner himself."
Beneath the floor, my hand closed around the cold grip of my rifle.
*Three minutes to midnight.*
I looked at Prescott. He held up three fingers, then two, then one.
In the distance, across the snow-covered hills of Lake Geneva, the iron bells of St. Peter's Church began to toll midnight.
*Bong... Bong... Bong...*
On the third chime, Viktor’s suppressed sniper rifle fired outside. A dull, wet *thwack* echoed above, followed by the sound of a body hitting the frozen grass.
"What was that?" a guard inside the crypt snapped.
"Move," I whispered.
May you like
I drove my shoulders upward against the iron grate, throwing the eighty-pound cast-iron slab into the air.
***
