Chapter 26 - Betrayal in the Deep Freeze
"They're here," Alistair said, his face hardening as he grabbed extra cartridges from a shelf. "Croft didn't use the water. He flew in under the radar."
The sound of shattering glass echoed from the observation deck above. Hayes pulled me behind the reinforced steel safe door just as a burst of automatic fire shredded the wooden desk, sending paper and splinters raining through the air.
"Lenora, pack the ledger and the charter into the waterproof rucksack!" Hayes ordered, his voice clipped and commanding. He leaned out from the vault frame, firing three controlled shots up the spiral iron staircase, forcing the invaders to scramble for cover.
Above us, a cultured, icy voice echoed down the metal cylinder of the lighthouse tower.
*"Alistair! Lenora! Be reasonable!"*
The footsteps halted on the landing above.
*"I am Julian Croft,"* the voice announced smoothly over the whistling wind. *"Your mother was remarkably cooperative, Lenora. A woman facing ten years in Taycheedah will trade an awful lot of family secrets for a promise of offshore bail and a private jet to the Cayman Islands."*
My stomach turned. Beatrice. Even behind bars, even after facing the humiliation of the Milwaukee courtroom, she had found a way to strike at me. She had sold out Grandfather's final refuge just to salvage her own pathetic vanity.
"My mother is a broken parasite, Croft!" I shouted back, my voice ringing clear and steady up the iron spine of the tower. "And you're just another scavenger picking at bones that don't belong to you!"
*"Bones?"* Croft chuckled, the sound chillingly devoid of warmth. *"My dear, those documents represent two billion dollars in northern trade tariffs over the next decade. Do you really think a schoolteacher and a retired detective can hold back the tide of global commerce? Hand over the charter, and I will let you walk down to your boat. Refuse... and you join your grandfather in the depths."*
"He’s stalling!" Hayes whispered to me, catching the faint scent of kerosene wafting down the shaft. "They're prepping incendiaries. They don't care about the historical papers if they can just burn the evidence that incriminates them!"
"There’s an escape tunnel," Alistair hissed, his hand gripping my wrist with surprising strength. He pointed to a low iron grate beneath the floorboards behind the safe. "It leads out to the sea caves on the north face. Douglas built a hidden dock there. The *Sterling Wave*—a fifty-foot diesel icebreaker—is fueled and waiting."
"We can't leave you, Uncle Alistair," I protested, tears stinging my eyes.
"I’ve guarded this rock for forty years, girl," the old man said with a fierce, defiant smile. "I'm not leaving my post for a bunch of Canadian suits. Go! Protect the charter! Show them what a Sterling is made of!"
May you like
Before I could argue, Alistair shoved me down into the narrow shaft, and Hayes dropped in beside me, pulling the heavy iron grate shut just as an explosion of fire and smoke ripped through the chamber above.
***
