Croft’s confession shattered Marcus’s carefully constructed world. He looked like a cornered animal, his eyes wide, darting between the faces around the table. The calm, manipulative veneer was gone, replaced by raw desperation.
“You’re all fools!” Marcus screamed, pointing at Croft. “He’s a proven perjurer! A coward!”
Sikes merely shook his head. “The wire transfer, the lack of a blood covenant, the clear intent to sell syndicate assets… it paints a very damning picture, Marcus.”
Marcus abruptly shoved his chair back, sending it clattering to the floor. He bolted.
“He’s escaping!” Leo yelled.
Hicks and his men moved, but Marcus was already halfway across the foyer, heading for the east wing, towards the upper control station. I knew what he was after. The emergency override.
“Stop him!” Hicks roared, but Marcus was fast, driven by panic.
He slammed through a hidden door I had built into the wall of the east wing. A heavy steel plate, designed to look like part of the paneling.
A moment later, a sickening thud echoed through the house. The sound of heavy steel blast doors slamming shut, deep beneath us. Then a high-pitched whine, followed by a sudden, intense pressure in my ears.
“The pneumatic system!” I yelled, my heart lurching. “He’s sealed the subterranean vault!”
Hicks grabbed a radio. “Report! Status of lower levels!”
Only static answered. The blast doors had cut off all internal communications.
A digital readout on a small panel near the dining room flickered to life. It displayed: “Vault Corridor 1: Oxygen 98%.” Then it began to drop. Rapidly.
“He’s cutting off the air!” Leo cried, his voice laced with terror.
“And he’s preparing to flood it with CO2,” I added, knowing Marcus’s ruthless methods. “He’ll claim it was an ‘accidental system malfunction’.”
The oxygen level dropped to 85%. Then 70%. Hicks and two of his men were still down in the main subterranean corridor, having been inspecting the safe deposit boxes with Sikes, per protocol.
Twist: Cornered by Croft’s confession, Marcus flees to the upper control station and triggers a pneumatic ventilation lockdown, sealing Arthur and Hicks inside the primary subterranean vault corridor while shutting off oxygen flow.
“We have to open those doors!” Leo frantically said, looking at the control panel.
“They’re designed to withstand a direct blast,” I explained, the pressure building in my head. “And he’s overridden the main power. The digital lock is useless.”
The display showed 55%. Hicks, Sikes, and his men were suffocating. The air grew thinner even up here. Marcus wasn’t just targeting the people below; he was causing a general atmospheric disruption.
“There has to be another way,” Leo pleaded, looking at me, his eyes wide with desperation.
I pictured the old schematics, the intricate, redundant systems I had built into The Anchorage. There was one way. But it meant bypassing everything from the outside.
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