I saw my husband’s hand on another woman before I saw his face. / Chapter 43 / 50

Chapter 43 - Sparks in the Deep

The lower access hatch sat beneath an iron grate in the floor, rusted shut by decades of salt corrosion. Julian used the crowbar from our tactical pack, lodging it beneath the lip while I threw my entire body weight onto the lever.

With a screech of groaning metal that sounded like a dying whale, the hatch broke free. A blast of freezing, briny air hit our faces. Below us, in the blackness, we could hear the thunderous roar of the Aegean tide crashing through submerged subterranean pipes.

"The manual bypass is down there!" Julian shouted over the roar of the water. "The valve wheel is cast iron. It’s going to be seized!"

"We use the solvent from the maintenance kit," I called back, already reaching into the bag.

Before we could descend, the intercom crackled again. Richard’s voice was harsher now, stripped of its theatrical calm. "Emily! You're making too much noise down there. What are you touching? Send the canister up now, or I swear to God I’ll drop a fragmentation charge down the intake shaft!"

"He's panicking," I whispered to Julian. "He doesn't have Helena's full mercenary force with him. If he did, he would have breached the door himself instead of playing games over an intercom."

"He's alone, or at most has two men," Julian agreed, his eyes narrowing. "He's terrified of losing the documents before he can sell them."

I stepped up to the intercom microphone, pressing the transmit button with steady fingers. "Richard! The lock mechanism on the copper cabinet is jammed with lime deposit! If you want the original charter intact, you have to give me ten minutes to cut through the seal! If you blow the shaft, the documents will incinerate in the blast!"

A pause hung in the air, heavy and fraught.

"Ten minutes, Emily," Richard barked through the static. "Not a second more. And if I hear metal striking metal again, I drop the pin."

I released the button and locked eyes with Julian. "Let's go."

We slid down the steel ladder into the dark, wet gut of the bunker. The water around our boots was already ankle-deep, surging through microscopic cracks in the foundation. At the end of the narrow catwalk stood the massive emergency flood wheel—painted faded maritime red, encrusted with barnacles and dried brine.

Julian grabbed the wheel, his veins bulging against his forearms. "Pull with me!"