Chapter 9 - The Falling Room
Elena pulled Lily’s shirt over her nose.
Nolan fired twice at the lock.
The bullets struck reinforced steel.
Ruiz pounded against the door from outside.
“What kind of gas?” Elena asked.
“Likely a sedative,” Nolan said. “Warren wants information before he wants bodies.”
“That doesn’t reassure me.”
Nolan limped toward the old climbing wall.
“Your father built an emergency exit.”
Elena remembered the mural.
Courage is control.
Beneath the painted mountain, one soldier’s hand pointed toward a loose climbing hold.
She twisted it.
A section of padded wall released.
Behind it was a narrow training shaft dropping into darkness.
“The falling room,” Nolan said.
Lily looked over the edge.
“I can’t.”
Elena knelt beside her.
“You remember what Grandpa taught you about falling?”
Lily shook her head.
“You make your body small, protect your head, and trust the mat.”
“There’s no mat.”
“There will be.”
Elena could not know that.
Lily searched her face.
“Promise?”
Elena forced herself to answer.
“Promise.”
She lowered Lily into the shaft.
Nolan climbed down first and waited below.
“Let go,” Elena told her.
Lily did.
A second later, Nolan called up.
“She’s safe.”
Elena entered next.
Ruiz broke through the outer door as she reached for the release.
“Elena!”
She looked back.
Gas filled the gym behind him.
“Come on!”
Ruiz ran toward the shaft.
A bullet struck the wall beside his head.
Marcus entered through the broken door wearing a respirator.
Ruiz fired back.
Elena held the panel open.
Ruiz reached them and jumped into the shaft.
Elena followed.
They landed on a thick foam pit inside a tunnel beneath the school.
Nolan led them through the darkness.
Marcus’s men entered the shaft above.
“Where does this go?” Ruiz asked.
“Old civil defense tunnels,” Nolan answered.
Ruiz grabbed his shoulder.
“You killed Colonel Ward.”
Nolan turned.
“Gabriel did.”
“You expect me to believe my brother became a murderer?”
“I expect you to believe evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“James recorded the shooting.”
Elena stopped.
“You have it?”
“I know where it is.”
“Where?”
Nolan pointed ahead.
“The military garage.”
“We searched it.”
“You searched the rooms. You didn’t search the equipment.”
Behind them, a metallic crash echoed through the tunnel.
Marcus had landed in the foam pit.
Nolan increased his pace.
The tunnel divided.
One path led toward Fort Granger. Another returned beneath Hawthorne Street.
Nolan chose the neighborhood route.
Ruiz kept his pistol trained on Nolan’s back.
“If Gabriel shot James, why would Warren hide it?”
“Because Gabriel worked for military intelligence, not Warren. He wanted the ledger for someone higher.”
“Who?”
“I never learned the name.”
Elena thought about the erased investigation, her sudden administrative leave, and the shooter ordered not to kill her yet.
Someone above Warren needed the ledger.
The tunnel ended behind a furnace in Beatrice’s basement.
They emerged into the house.
State investigators waited in the kitchen.
Maya stood among them.
She embraced Elena briefly, then checked Lily.
“You’re both safe?”
“For now.”
Maya looked at Nolan.
“We need to restrain him.”
Nolan allowed an investigator to take his pistol.
“There’s no time. Marcus will reach the garage through the other tunnel.”
Elena ran next door.
The garage door was open.
Inside, the lights were on.
Marcus stood near the American flag with six men.
Warren waited beside him.
Dozens of neighbors gathered outside, drawn by the police vehicles and shouting.
Lily remained behind Maya.
Marcus tossed a pair of MMA gloves at Elena’s feet.
“Put them on,” he said. “Or I’ll break your arm right in front of your little daughter.”
Everything unfolded exactly as Warren had planned.
A public confrontation.
Witnesses.
Cameras.
A decorated officer attacking a supposedly unarmed civilian.
Yet Warren had miscalculated one thing.
Elena no longer needed to protect her reputation.
She needed to keep Marcus occupied while Nolan searched the equipment for her father’s recording.
Elena removed her uniform jacket.
The neighbors whispered.
Marcus stepped into the yellow square.
Elena tightened her gloves.
“There’s only one rule.”
Marcus smirked.
May you like
“When you want to give up,” she said, “lie down.”
He lunged.
