Chapter 8 - Into the Lion’s Den
The salt air of Narragansett Bay tasted like iron and brine against Claire’s lips as she pulled the neoprene wetsuit tighter around her shoulders. The night was pitch black, swallowed by a heavy coastal fog that rolled off the dark Atlantic like a shroud.
They had dropped Lily off with Marcus’s trusted friend in Montauk four hours earlier. Lily hadn't wanted to let go of Claire’s neck, crying softly into her collarbone, but Claire had promised—with every ounce of faith she possessed—that she would come back with her father.
Now, crouching in the bow of a small, unlit inflatable Zodiac boat cutting silently through the waves, Claire felt only the cold, sharp focus of a soldier entering a war zone.
Marcus cut the outboard motor two hundred yards offshore, letting the tide carry them toward the jagged rock face of Cliffwood Manor. Above them, perched on the cliff like a gothic citadel of stone and glass, the mansion loomed against the night sky, its windows glowing with faint, wealthy amber light.
"Remember," Marcus whispered, leaning close to Claire’s ear over the sound of the surf crashing against the rocks. "Stick right behind me. If the alarms trip, we don't fight our way out—we run for the water. Understood?"
"Understood," Claire whispered back.
They slipped over the side of the Zodiac into the freezing, waist-deep Atlantic water. The shock of the cold hit Claire like a physical blow, stealing her breath for a second before adrenaline kicked in, warming her veins with fire.
They waded through the surf toward a narrow, jagged crevice in the cliff face half-hidden by sea spray and tangled kelp.
The entrance to the smugglers' tunnel.
Marcus pulled a heavy waterproof flashlight from his belt, flicked it on to reveal a dim, reddish beam that wouldn't trigger night-vision alarms, and ducked inside the brick-lined corridor. Claire followed closely behind, her boots splashing through six inches of brackish water that smelled of ancient slime and rusted iron.
The tunnel sloped upward for fifty yards before opening into a rusted iron grate overlooking the sub-basement of the mansion.
Marcus reached up, gripped the rusted bars of the grate, and twisted with all his weight. With a dull, metallic pop, the rusted bolts gave way, and the grate swung inward.
They slipped through into the subterranean bowels of Cliffwood Manor.
The sub-basement was silent, sterile, and lit by fluorescent emergency strips along the concrete floor. Rows of server racks hummed quietly against the stone walls, cooling the digital brain of the Lockwood empire.
"This way," Marcus muttered, checking his watch. "We have nine minutes before the sector re-indexes."
They crept down a narrow concrete hallway lined with heavy steel doors marked with digital keypad locks. Marcus stopped in front of Door 4B, pulling a small, modified tablet from his tactical pouch and plugging it into the maintenance port beneath the keypad.
Lines of green code scrolled rapidly across the screen.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The heavy steel door clicked and swung inward with a pneumatic hiss.
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Claire rushed past Marcus into the dimly lit holding cell.
In the center of the room, strapped to a medical gurney with leather restraints, pale, bruised, and barely conscious, was Nathaniel.
