Chapter 4 - The Fire in the Archive
"Marcus!" Daniel yelled, dropping the binder into his leather satchel.
"I’m right here," Marcus’s voice echoed calmly through the dark as the bright beam of his tactical flashlight snapped back on, sweeping across the sealed vault door. "Stay behind me."
A strange, sharp chemical odor began wafting through the overhead ventilation ducts—the distinct, pungent smell of industrial accelerant and diesel fuel.
WHIRRRRRR.
A loud, mechanical clicking noise vibrated from the ceiling vents, followed immediately by a low, rushing hiss. Through the metal grilles, a thick, white smoke began pouring into the room in heavy, suffocating clouds.
"It's halon gas mixed with solvent," Marcus said, pulling a compact glass-breaker tool from his tactical belt. "They aren't just locking us in—they're purging the room to burn the physical paper and suffocate anything breathing inside!"
"The manual emergency bypass," Daniel said, his eyes tearing up as the thick smoke reached his face. He sprinted toward the back wall where the red emergency mechanical release handle was housed behind glass.
Using the brass handle of his heavy leather satchel, Daniel smashed the emergency glass. He grabbed the iron release lever and threw his entire body weight downward.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
A heavy, mechanical chain rattled inside the concrete wall. With a sharp groan of straining metal, the main vault door cracked open four inches, breaking the vacuum seal.
Marcus threw his heavy shoulder against the gap, driving his combat boots against the floorboards, forcing the heavy steel door open wide enough for them to squeeze through.
They burst out into the basement corridor, coughing violently, their eyes burning from the chemical fumes. Through the smoke, Daniel saw a dark figure in a long rain slicker disappearing around the corner toward the rear fire exit stairwell.
"Stay here!" Marcus ordered, drawing his sidearm as he gave chase down the corridor.
"No, together!" Daniel coughing, sprinted behind Marcus.
They rounded the concrete corner just in time to see the heavy steel fire exit door slamming shut. Marcus drove his foot against the panic bar, bursting out into the torrential rain of the rear alleyway.
The alley was dark, lined with overflowing industrial dumpsters. At the far end of the lane, a black luxury sedan accelerated rapidly, its tires screeching against the wet pavement as it turned onto 4th Street, its license plate obscured by dark tinting.
Marcus lowered his weapon, breathing heavily as the rain soaked through his suit jacket. "He set a timed ignition fuse on the ventilation system. If we were five minutes slower, that entire archive would be a heap of ash."
Daniel stood in the middle of the wet alley, wiping rain and chemical soot from his forehead. He gripped his leather satchel tight against his chest, feeling the hard outline of the yellowed 1992 ledger inside.
He opened the satchel slightly under the light of a flickering street lamp, pulling out the single, intact document he had salvaged: the birth certificate of Michael Stallone, born to Eleanor Reed.
May you like
"Who was Eleanor Reed?" Marcus asked, looking down at the document over Daniel’s shoulder.
"I don't know," Daniel replied softly, his voice trembling with a mixture of grief, anger, and profound confusion. "But the caller told me to look for a man named Thomas Reed. We need to find him before whoever set that fire finds him first."
