Chapter 7 - The Ghost in Room 14
Inside the vault, the silence became suffocating. The low hum of the ventilation system died, replaced by the faint, ominous hiss of nitrogen venting into the chamber. The air grew noticeably thin within minutes, cold and hollow in their lungs.
Meline slid down against the safe-deposit lockers, clutching the leather journal to her chest, her breathing shallow. ""Garrison... we’re going to die here.""
Garrison didn't panic. He knelt beside her, stripping off his heavy coat and draping it over her shoulders. His face was entirely devoid of fear; his slate-gray eyes burned with a cold, terrifying calculation.
""Listen to me, Meline,"" he said, taking her trembling face between his large, warm hands. ""Bennett knows our external protocols. But he doesn't know the building codes. My family constructed Continental Trust in 1968. My grandfather didn't build a vault without an egress.""
He pulled out his heavy tactical pen, unscrewed the tungsten cap, and hurried to the rear wall where an ornamental bronze plaque dedicated the vault to the Chicago banking founders. Garrison jammed the hardened tungsten point into the seam between the bronze and the mortar, throwing his entire body weight against it.
The stone cracked. Mortar crumbled like dry chalk.
With a grunt of pure, raw muscle, Garrison pried the plaque free, revealing a manual mechanical release wheel hidden behind the stone—an emergency fail-safe built by old-world mobsters who never trusted electric locks.
""Turn it!"" Meline gasped, stumbling to her feet despite the dizziness clawing at her brain.
Together, their hands gripping the iron spokes, they strained against fifty years of rust and tension. The wheel groaned, the ancient gears grinding beneath the floor, until a heavy hydraulic lock released with a deafening bang.
The side utility hatch swung open, spilling fresh, cold air from the subway maintenance tunnels beneath the city.
Garrison pulled Meline through the opening into his arms, lifting her effortlessly as he sprinted through the dark, damp brick arches beneath Chicago's streets.
Three hours later, the tables had completely turned.
Garrison’s loyal inner guard, alerted by the silent transponder sewn into the lining of his belt, met them at a subway junction on State Street. By 6:00 p.m., Bennett Shaw was intercepted at O’Hare International Airport before he could board a flight to Zurich.
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And Salvatore Moretti?
The elderly don had retreated to his private fortified estate in Lake Forest, believing Garrison Vance was suffocating ten stories below ground. He was sitting in his grand dining room, raising a glass of wine to celebrate his triumph, when the entire southern wall of his mansion was sheared off by a bulldozer driven by Vance’s front-line enforcers.
