Chapter 9 - THE VOICE IN THE FIRE
“Cut the blue wire,” Tessa said.
Eli stared at her.
“What?”
“That’s what they do in movies.”
“Please stop helping.”
Twenty-two seconds.
I looked at the receiver box.
A green light flashed in time with Tessa’s collar.
“Can you jam it?”
“With what?” Eli said.
I held up the metal ledger case from the vault.
His eyes widened.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is enough.”
We ripped the transmitter from Tessa’s coat without touching the pressure plate, shoved it into the steel case, dropped the case into a utility sink, and slammed the lid.
Seven seconds.
Six.
Five.
Eli threw himself over Tessa and me.
The timer hit zero.
Nothing happened.
Then the entire building jumped.
A blast rolled up through the floor.
Stone cracked.
Dust swallowed us.
The lights died.
Somewhere above, people screamed.
I couldn’t hear out of my left ear.
“Tessa!”
“I’m here!”
“Eli?”
A cough.
“Still regretting meeting you.”
Relief hit me so hard I almost laughed.
We climbed through a broken maintenance hatch into the lower crypt passage.
Fire crawled along old electrical lines.
The main bomb had detonated deep enough to damage the foundation but not collapse the whole temple.
Someone had wanted chaos.
Not total destruction.
Eli stared into the smoke.
“This was a diversion.”
“For what?”
A speaker crackled above us.
Static.
Then a voice.
“Maya.”
I stopped breathing.
Noah.
Tessa looked at me.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
The speaker hissed again.
“Maya, listen carefully. You have maybe two minutes before Sloane reaches the lower corridor.”
Eli looked up sharply.
“Noah?”
The voice ignored him.
“Maya, there’s a red door behind the old furnace. Go through it.”
I moved toward the furnace.
Eli blocked me.
“Don’t.”
My eyes burned.
“That’s my brother.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know his voice.”
“So do they.”
The speaker crackled.
Noah said, “Ask Eli what happened to Dad.”
Eli went still.
My head turned.
“What happened to Dad?”
“Not now.”
Noah’s voice sharpened.
“Ask him who planted the charge in the Riverside warehouse fourteen years ago.”
My father had died in the Riverside warehouse fire.
The official report said faulty wiring.
I looked at Eli.
His face gave me the answer before his mouth did.
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
“I planted a charge.”
Tessa whispered, “Oh my God.”
My lungs stopped working.
“You killed my father?”
“I didn’t know he was inside.”
“You killed my father!”
“It was supposed to destroy a server room!”
I hit him.
He took it.
I hit him again.
He took that too.
The red door behind the furnace clicked open by itself.
Noah’s voice came through one last time.
“Come alone, Maya.”
I wiped tears from my face.
Then he said, “And whatever Eli tells you next, remember this: he was never sent to protect our family.”
A gunshot echoed in the corridor behind us.
Sloane was coming.
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