Chapter 10 - The Vault beneath the Concrete
I dropped to my stomach, crawling beneath the rising cloud of tear gas along the second-floor runner rug.
At the end of the hallway, near the linen closet, a dark figure in a black tactical jumpsuit and a full-face respirator mask was crouching, aiming a suppressed submachine gun down the stairwell toward the kitchen.
He hadn't heard me approach behind him over the roar of the tear gas canisters.
I rose up on my knees, raised the heavy cast-iron desk lamp with both hands, and brought it down with all the strength in my body onto the back of his tactical helmet.
CLANG!
The heavy metal lamp struck the helmet with a dull crack. The man let out a muffled grunt, stumbling forward and tumbling headfirst down the steep wooden staircase, his weapon clattering uselessly down the steps behind him.
I didn't wait to see if he was conscious. I scrambled down the stairs after him, leaping over his sprawled body in the foyer, and burst into the kitchen.
The kitchen was a scene of absolute devastation.
Our dining table was flipped on its side; dishes were smashed across the tile floor, and three men in tactical gear lay incapacitated near the basement door. Julian stood near the island, his trench coat torn at the shoulder, holding a heavy military-grade sidearm with a smoking barrel.
Brian was kneeling beside the basement entry, holding his arm where a piece of flying glass had cut his jacket sleeve, his face covered in sweat and soot.
"Sarah!" Brian gasped, looking up in sheer relief. "Maddie?!"
"She's out! She's on the garage roof and into the woods!" I yelled over the ringing in my ears. "We have to go NOW!"
"Downstairs!" Julian shouted, slapping a fresh magazine into his sidearm. "The vault beneath the slab is a reinforced panic shelter! It has a secondary escape tunnel that leads into the municipal storm culvert behind your property line!"
We didn't hesitate. We threw ourselves down the basement stairs, slamming the heavy reinforced oak door behind us and sliding two heavy iron deadbolts into place.
Julian rushed past the fallen fiberglass insulation, straight to the far concrete wall of the cellar behind Brian's lumber rack.
He grabbed an old hydraulic floor jack, shoved it against a seam in the concrete wall, and began pumping the handle furiously.
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With a heavy, grinding roar of iron gears, a six-foot section of the solid concrete cellar wall slid backward six inches, revealing a brightly lit, climate-controlled steel corridor built directly beneath our backyard lawn.
"Arthur didn't just hide evidence here, Brian," Julian said as he pushed us through the hidden concrete doorway into the illuminated vault. "He built a fortress to ensure his family would survive the day this war finally came to his front door."
