Chapter 4 - The Underground Tunnel
I knew I couldn't fight him physically. My muscles were weak, my vision was flickering, and my lungs burned with every breath. If Aldo pressed his physical advantage, I would be dead in seconds.
So I used the one weapon he didn't expect me to still have: my mind.
"If you kill me here, Aldo," I said, stepping backward toward the heavy oak wardrobe, "you will never open the Zurich vault."
Aldo froze in his tracks. His eyes narrowed instantly. "What are you talking about?"
"You think the fifty-carat diamonds Camilla stole were my real fortune?" I let out a dry, raspy laugh that sounded like dying coals. "That was pocket change. The main reserve—one hundred and twenty million dollars in bearer bonds—is stored in a private vault in Zurich. It requires a live biometric voice scan and a unique 12-digit key code that changes every twenty-four hours."
Aldo’s jaw set tight. Greed, bright and blinding, warred with his lethal intent. "Give me the code."
"It's stored in my private safe," I lied smoothly, pointing my cane toward the dark maintenance tunnel entrance hidden behind the carved wooden back panel of the wardrobe. "In the secondary ledger."
Aldo stared at the wardrobe, then back at me. "You're lying."
"Check for yourself," I said, stepping aside. "Or kill me now and lose one hundred and twenty million dollars forever."
Greed won. It always does with men like Aldo.
He pulled his black revolver from his shoulder holster, pointing it directly at my chest. "Walk in front of me. Slowly."
I turned and stepped into the cramped, dark space of the wardrobe, pushing aside heavy fur coats until my hand touched the secret latch hidden in the wooden carving. The back panel swung inward with a soft click, revealing a dark, concrete staircase leading down into the pitch-black maintenance tunnels beneath the mansion.
The air inside the shaft was cold, damp, and smelled heavily of iron, coal dust, and old grease.
Aldo stepped inside behind me, the barrel of his gun pressed firmly against the small of my back. "Where is the ledger, Dario?"
"Ten steps down," I murmured, pretending to stumble over my own robe. "On the utility shelf..."
As Aldo leaned forward to peer into the dark gloom of the shaft, I didn't reach for a ledger.
I reached for the emergency fire-suppression lever mounted on the concrete wall—a high-pressure carbon dioxide system I had installed fifteen years ago to protect the mansion's structural foundations.
With every ounce of remaining strength in my body, I slammed my weight down onto the heavy iron lever.
HISSSSSSSSSSSSS!
A blinding, deafening cloud of frozen carbon dioxide gas exploded out of the wall vents with the force of a jet engine!
Aldo screamed as the high-pressure gas hit him square in the face, blinding him and knocking his revolver from his hand. The freezing cloud engulfed the tight corridor, wiping out all oxygen in a matter of seconds.
I dropped to the floor, where a sliver of breathable air remained near the concrete steps, and kicked backward with my boot, catching Aldo square in the shins.
He lost his balance, tumbling backward down the steep, concrete staircase into the pitch-black depths of the maintenance tunnel, his screams echoing off the damp walls until a heavy CRACK signaled his violent impact at the bottom.
I crawled backward out of the wardrobe, slamming the secret panel shut and locking the mechanical latch from the inside.
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I lay on the marble floor of my bedroom, gasping for air, my heart hammering like a war drum.
I was alive. The ghost in my room had been dragged out into the light. But as I looked toward the bedroom door, I knew the battle was far from over. Aldo’s loyal guards were still patrolling the estate, and if I didn't act fast, they would finish what their master had started.
