Chapter 15 - The Lion Returns
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Thick, white fire-retardant fog erupted from the ceiling vents across the penthouse gallery with a deafening hiss, turning the marble corridor into an impenetrable whiteout within three seconds.
"Move! Stay low against the baseboards!" Clara whispered fiercely, guiding Maya and little Sofia ahead of her while supporting Toby’s bad side.
Behind the wall of fog, shouts in Russian and English echoed as Viktor’s men stumbled out of the freight elevator, coughing and firing blindly into the mist toward the study.
"Find the vault! The thermal cameras are blinded by the steam lines!" Viktor’s voice barked through the chaos. "Check the panic room behind the study!"
Clara pushed Toby and Maya through the double doors of Dante’s darkened master suite, locking the deadbolt softly behind them, and hurried across the plush carpet toward the north terrace.
Outside in the freezing October night, the wind whipped violently around the seventieth floor. Across the dark expanse of the East River, red and blue flashes lit up the Brooklyn Navy Yard—and right here on the terrace edge hung the steel maintenance cradle.
"Get in first, Maya!" Clara urged, unlatching the safety gate and holding the steel cable steady. "Toby, help her hold Sofia!"
Just as Toby swung his good leg over the railing into the cradle, the heavy oak doors of the master bedroom splintered inward under the impact of a breaching shotgun.
Clara spun around.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the swirling white mist of the hallway, was Aleksei Orlov—and two steps behind him stood Viktor Kael, a silver-plated revolver gleaming in his gloved hand.
"Going somewhere, little bird?" Viktor purred, stepping into the bedroom as Orlov trained an assault rifle on the terrace. "And here I thought waitresses were supposed to stay until the bill was paid."
Behind her back, Clara’s hand closed around the manual emergency brake release lever for the gondola winch.
"My brother and my friend have nothing to do with this, Viktor!" Clara shouted, stepping directly between the gunmen and the terrace railing to block their line of sight. "You want the physical drives from Dante’s wall safe? Only I saw him punch in the six-digit combination tonight!"
Viktor paused ten feet away, his cold, aristocratic face twisting into an intrigued sneer. "Enzo said the safe was biometric."
"The panic room is biometric. The wall safe inside it uses a rolling cipher," Clara lied smoothly, every nerve in her body screaming as her fingers silently worked the safety pin out of the winch lever behind her back. "Kill them, and you blow up this building empty-handed."
Viktor glanced past her shoulder at the gondola swaying in the wind, then nodded slightly to Orlov. "Bring the girl inside. Leave the cripple and the brat in the basket—we can always cut the cable if she forgets a number."
The instant Viktor took a step forward, Clara wrenched the manual brake lever all the way back.
With a screech of greased steel cables, the heavy counterweights disengaged, dropping the gondola—with Toby, Maya, and Sofia safely inside—plummeting safely down the side of the building on the gravity-descent gear toward the neighbouring rooftop ten stories below.
"No!" Orlov lunged toward the railing, raising his rifle to fire downward.
Clara threw herself at his arm, knocking the barrel skyward as bullets stitched harmlessly into the night air. Orlov backhanded her viciously across the face, sending her crashing onto the terrace flagstones, blood stinging the corner of her split lip.
Viktor stepped out onto the stones, aiming his silver revolver straight down at her heart. "Brave. Stupid, but brave."
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Suddenly, the heavy private elevator inside the master suite chimed—and before Orlov could turn, a hail of armor-piercing rounds tore straight through the elevator doors, dropping two of Viktor’s guards in the hall.
Dante had come up the express shaft on top of the elevator car.
