Chapter 9 - The Panic Room and the Voice on the Other Side of the Wall
The second hydraulic strike against the outer door was so loud it sounded like a bomb detonating inside the small apartment.
BANG.
The reinforced steel frame groaned, rivets popping out of the aged brick wall and clattering onto the hardwood floor.
“Clara! Move!” Thomas shouted, shoving me gently toward the master bedroom.
I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the heavy Pelican case with one hand, clutched my bulging belly with the other, and sprinted down the hallway into the master bedroom.
The panic room door was disguised as the back panel of a walk-in wardrobe, lined with heavy cedar shelves.
I pushed the secret latch, swung the steel door inward, and stepped inside the pitch-black chamber.
The interior was lit by a single amber emergency bulb hanging from the ceiling, revealing a small cot, a control panel with computer monitors displaying the apartment’s security feeds, and a secondary reinforced steel door marked EXIT TUNNEL.
Before I pulled the heavy door shut, I looked back through the gap into the bedroom.
Thomas was standing in the center of the room, his pistol raised and aimed steadily at the bedroom entrance, his face calm and resolute.
CLANG.
The front door of the apartment finally shattered inward with a splintering roar of wood and metal.
Footsteps thundered across the living room floor.
“Clear!” Marcus’s gravelly voice echoed down the hall.
I pulled the panic room door shut, turning the heavy deadbolt until it locked with a satisfying, airtight hiss.
Silence enveloped me inside the concrete cell.
I dropped to my knees beside the security monitor console, turning on the audio feed from the hidden microphones planted throughout the apartment.
The sound of boots crunching on broken glass filled the small room.
“He’s in the master bedroom!” someone shouted.
“Drop the weapon, Barrett!” Marcus roared.
“You’re outmatched!”
“Go to hell, Marcus!” Thomas shouted back.
BANG. BANG.
Gunshots cracked through the speakers—two sharp, deafening explosions that made me flinch and cover my ears.
“He’s hit!” a voice yelled.
“Secure the perimeter! Search the bedroom for the woman and the Pelican case!”
My heart hammered wildly against my ribs.
I stared at the security monitor screen showing the bedroom feed.
Thomas was down, leaning against the closet door, his hand pressed against a dark red stain spreading rapidly across his sweater, his pistol lying out of reach on the floor.
Two enforcers pinned him down, while Marcus stepped into the frame, his eyes scanning the bedroom walls with cold calculation.
“Where is she?” Marcus demanded, kicking Thomas’s foot aside.
Thomas spat blood onto the floor, offering Marcus a bloody, defiant grin.
“She’s… already gone,” Thomas wheezed.
Marcus cursed loudly, pulling a radio from his tactical vest.
“Team two, report! Did anyone exit through the rear service alley?”
“Negative, boss,” a voice crackled over the radio.
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“The entire building is locked down. She’s still inside.”
Marcus turned his cold, dead eyes directly toward the hidden camera lens in the wardrobe—as if he knew I was watching him through the screen.
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