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24
Lyon climbed another set of metal stairs, the rest of his men at his back. The water crib had been cleared and secured — all except for one room.
The control room.
Looking at the closed door guarded by the men, he understood why they’d waited for his instructions. This wasn’t a door like the one behind which Sergei had hidden. That one had been steel too, but it had been of a standard thickness, the locks easily blown off by the semi-automatic weapons carried by Lyon’s men.
This was the door to a vault. Because it was closed, Lyon couldn’t tell its precise thickness, but the giant wheel that stood at its center — like that of a bank vault — gave him some indication that it wasn’t an ordinary door.
It required a special key to open, and while Lyon could send for one of the bratva’s experts in that area, doing so would take time.
More time meant more risk — that something could go wrong, that Marine Patrol or the Coast Guard would notice the activity on the crib and send men to investigate. He had men inboth organizations on the payroll, but there was no way to know if they would be able to mitigate the attention.
It would also draw the press, ambulance chasers who monitored police and marine channels hoping to get an exclusive on a fresh story.
It wasn’t ideal, which was why he was glad he had another way.
He planted his feet in front of the door, Sergei’s blood dripping from his face and shirt. “I have your son, Vadim. Open the door.”
A pause. Then an accented voice he remembered from his first moment waking in the tunnels.
“That would be foolish, Lyonya.” His voice was muffled by the steel door that separated them. “I’m sure you know this.”
“Perhaps,” Lyon said. He was calm, both to give Vadim the impression that he wasn’t worried and because there was no reason not to be calm. Lyon had all the leverage. “Nevertheless, there’s only one way you get to see your son, and that’s if you open this door.”
Another pause.
“Do you think I don’t know you will kill me?” Vadim shouted, obviously working to make sure Lyon could hear him through the vault-like door.
“That is my intent,” Lyon said. There was no point lying. “But that would be my intent if I used my men to crack this door as well. And who knows? Maybe your men can take me before I put a bullet in your brain. It doesn’t really matter to me, but we both know there’s no other way out. At least this way, you get to see your son one last time.”
There were no windows inside the control room, no other exits besides the door that separated them.
This time he was met with silence.
Markus shifted on his feet. “Should we get — ”
“Wait,” Lyon said.
He understood Markus’s impatience. Lyon saw something of himself in Markus, a part of him that enjoyed the violence of their work, that saw it as a perk rather than a drawback of the business.
The door creaked from the other side.
“Take out the men,” Lyon said quietly to his men. “But leave Vadim to me.”
They raised their weapons, and the door clanged to life, opening first an inch, then another.
Lyon waited as the men sprang into position in front of the ever-widening opening.
It was only open a couple of feet when the gunfire started. Lyon couldn’t see what was going on from his position, but he waited, staying out of the way, letting the men handle Vadim’s guards.
When the gunfire stopped, Markus and Alek stepped inside.
The door opened the rest of the way in a cacophony of creaking as the rusted hinges protested.
Vadim stood at the far end of the circular room, near a wall of buttons, levers, and small analog screens that looked like readouts for the crib’s inner workings.
“He’s been disarmed,” Alek said blandly.
