Chapter 12 - SARAH’S SECRET
Everyone stared at Sarah.
She removed a thin device from beneath her sleeve.
A miniature signal jammer.
Roman looked at her differently now.
“You knew about the Crown.”
“I knew someone was watching us.”
“For how long?”
“Eight years.”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“You knew I was alive?”
“No.”
Sarah looked at him.
“I hoped.”
“I never stopped hoping.”
Konstantin struck the table on the screen.
“You think disabling one trap changes anything?”
Sarah looked up.
“No.”
“But it gives us time.”
The chapel windows shattered.
Armed men rappelled down from the roof.
Roman pushed Maya behind the altar.
Gunfire erupted.
Viktor fired first.
Julian grabbed a fallen weapon.
Daniel pulled Sarah and Maya toward the trapdoor.
Roman covered them.
One attacker reached the altar.
Maya threw a brass candleholder at his face.
He stumbled.
Sarah kicked his weapon away.
Daniel stared at her.
“You learned to fight.”
“I had eight years.”
They dropped into the tunnel.
Roman followed last.
Viktor remained above.
“Come on!”
Roman shouted.
Viktor fired at the final attacker.
Then he looked down at Roman.
“I owe Daniel a life.”
“You can repay him alive.”
Viktor almost smiled.
“Not this time.”
He slammed the trapdoor shut.
An explosion shook the tunnel.
Maya screamed.
Roman stared upward.
Dust covered his face.
He said nothing.
Daniel touched the wall.
“He saved us.”
Roman looked at him.
“He saved himself from living with what he did.”
They moved deeper underground.
Sarah led them through a maintenance passage.
Julian followed.
Maya kept looking back.
“Where are we going?”
Sarah held up the jammer.
“To the only room the Crown cannot see.”
The passage ended at an old laundry chamber.
Sarah pressed a loose brick.
A hidden door opened.
Inside were maps, photographs and stacks of files.
Screens displayed Crown accounts across the world.
Daniel stared.
“You built this?”
Sarah nodded.
“Not alone.”
A woman stepped out from behind the screens.
She wore an FBI jacket.
Roman raised his gun.
Sarah blocked him.
“This is Agent Lena Brooks.”
“She has been helping me.”
Roman did not lower the weapon.
“The FBI has tried to arrest me for fifteen years.”
Lena looked at him.
“Tonight is still young.”
Maya looked at the screens.
One showed the Black Ledger transfer.
Still frozen at ninety-nine percent.
“Can you stop it?”
Lena shook her head.
“But we can redirect it.”
“To the FBI?”
“To twelve international agencies.”
Roman looked at the names.
“That would expose innocent people.”
“We are filtering the victims from the criminals.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Julian laughed.
“We don’t have twenty minutes.”
A red light flashed on the wall.
Lena checked the security feed.
Valentina and a team of armed men had entered the underground level.
Daniel grabbed a weapon.
Sarah looked at Maya.
“There is an emergency tunnel behind that cabinet.”
“It leads outside.”
“No.”
Maya’s answer was immediate.
Sarah crouched.
“This is not a debate.”
“They need me.”
“That is exactly why you must leave.”
Maya shook her head.
“If I leave, they’ll follow.”
Roman looked at her.
The child was right.
Konstantin’s voice suddenly came through every speaker.
“Maya.”
“I have someone you have not met.”
A second video feed appeared.
An elderly woman sat tied to a chair.
Daniel gasped.
“Mother?”
The woman lifted her face.
Daniel’s supposedly dead mother looked into the camera.
Konstantin stood behind her.
May you like
“Bring Maya to me.”
“Or three generations of her family end tonight.”
