Chapter 5 - Fire in the High-Rise
The air inside the maintenance shaft was freezing, whistling with the raw drafts of the November gale howling through the skyscraper’s exterior vents.
Dante descended first, his boots finding the steel rungs with rhythmic, mechanical precision, the carbine slung securely across his chest. Above him, Serena moved with surprising agility, her teeth gritted, ignoring the tearing silk of her robe as she climbed down rung by rung. Patricia came last, whimpering with every downward step, her designer slippers slipping on the cold steel.
Fifty feet above them, a muffled, concussive *CRACK* reverberated through the concrete shaft.
The thermite had burned through the primary locks.
Dante paused on the ladder, hanging by one arm. He reached into his tactical vest, pulled out the small remote detonator, and flipped up the safety toggle with his thumb.
Through the acoustic echo of the shaft, they heard the heavy safe room door being kicked inward, crashing onto the bunker floor. Carlo’s voice boomed down the shaft:
*"Clear the room! Get the girl! Kill the—"*
Dante depressed the button.
The explosion above them was magnificent.
A deafening, gut-wrenching shockwave tore through the top of the shaft. A roaring tongue of orange flame, pulverized drywall, and shredded steel blasted across the opening fifty feet above their heads, venting out into the storm. The sound was so violent that Patricia shrieked, nearly losing her grip, before Serena reached up with one arm and locked her hand around her mother’s wrist, hauling her back against the ladder with sheer willpower.
"Keep moving!" Dante roared through the ringing silence, his voice cutting through the smoke billowing downward. "Floor fifty is right below us!"
Dante reached the access hatch on the fiftieth floor, struck the release latch with the heel of his boot, and kicked the grate open. He tumbled out into the darkened utility corridor, carbine instantly raised to his shoulder.
*Clear.*
He reached back into the shaft, catching Serena by the waist and lifting her down onto the concrete floor. She stumbled against him, her chest heaving, smoke smudging her pale cheeks, but her eyes were razor-sharp.
"Mother, now!" Serena whispered urgently into the hatch.
Patricia dropped onto the floor like a sack of wet flour, clutching her chest, sobbing uncontrollably. "Vincent is going to kill us all... he's going to find us..."
"Shut her up," Dante snapped quietly to Serena as he moved toward the exterior service door labeled: **EXTERIOR MAINTENANCE PLATFORM.**
He cracked the door open. The freezing Chicago gale hit them like a physical blow, carrying stinging pellets of sleet and rain. Fifty floors below, the Chicago streets looked like a grid of microscopic ribbons. Suspended from the reinforced roof tracks was the heavy industrial window-washing cradle—a steel basket with high railings, anchored by heavy steel cables.
Dante stepped out onto the narrow exterior catwalk, securing the platform’s control pendant.
Suddenly, the stairwell door at the end of the fiftieth-floor hallway burst open.
Three of Carlo’s perimeter guards—men who had been stationed to guard the lower elevators—charged into the corridor. They had heard the explosion above and were moving to investigate.
"There he is!" one shouted, raising a tactical shotgun.
Dante didn't hesitate. He stepped between the shooters and Serena, raising his MCX carbine. The suppressed rifle chattered with lethal efficiency:
*Pfft-pfft-pfft.*
The center shooter took three .300 Blackout rounds to the chest plate, the kinetic energy throwing him violently backward into the wall. The second guard dove behind a stack of air-conditioning filters, returning fire with a high-capacity pistol. Bullets sparked off the steel doorframe next to Dante’s head.
A third guard flanked wide, aiming his weapon directly at Dante’s exposed side.
*BANG! BANG!*
Two sharp, unsuppressed gunshots rang out from behind Dante.
The flanking guard stumbled, his eyes widening in shock as two 9mm hollow-point rounds torn through his throat and collarbone. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for air before going completely still.
Dante turned his head, stunned.
Serena stood in the doorway, the Glock 19 locked in a perfect two-handed grip, smoke curling from the barrel. Her arms were rock-steady. Her face was an emotionless mask of cold, lethal focus.
She lowered the weapon slightly, looking into Dante’s eyes.
"I told you," she whispered, her voice steady over the screaming wind. "My father taught me how to kill."
A dark, dangerous, fiercely proud smile crossed Dante’s lips. "Remind me never to lie to you, Mrs. Cavali."
He fired three suppressing rounds to keep the remaining shooter pinned behind the filters, grabbed Patricia by the jacket, and shoved her onto the exterior window cradle. "Get on the platform! Go!"
Serena leaped onto the metal grated floor of the cradle without hesitation. Dante stepped on behind her, hit the emergency descent switch on the pendant, and severed the manual override cable with his combat knife to prevent anyone from stopping their descent from above.
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The industrial winches groaned, and the heavy steel platform plunged over the edge of the skyscraper, descending rapidly through the freezing mist into the black abyss of the city below.
***
