Chapter 6 - The Stiletto Strike
The heel was five inches of solid steel, reinforced to bear weight, ending in a point sharp enough to pierce sheet metal.
In one fluid, explosive motion that defied the thirty-two weeks of weight I was carrying, I lunged upward from the floor.
I didn't aim for Fiona's torso. I aimed for the median nerve in her left wrist—the precise anatomical bundle that controls the flexion of the human hand.
*Crack.*
The steel stiletto slammed directly into the inner crook of her wrist with the full force of my body weight.
Fiona shrieked in agony—a raw, inhuman wail that tore through the cellar. Her fingers snapped open involuntarily as the nerve was severed. The black dead-man switch slipped from her paralyzed grip and tumbled through the air.
"Mercer!" I screamed.
Mercer didn't hesitate. He didn't fire. He threw his entire two-hundred-pound frame across the concrete, diving headfirst like a baseball player sliding into home plate. His gloved hand swept beneath Fiona's falling body, catching the plastic detonator two inches above the stone floor.
His thumb slammed down onto the auxiliary safety catch with a sickening crunch of breaking plastic.
The red LED on the transmitter blinked once, twice, and flickered out.
Fiona collapsed against the support pillar, clutching her bleeding, useless arm, screaming curses that echoed off the stone vaults.
Matthias was still on his knees, staring in paralyzed horror at the pool of blood spreading across the floor.
"Get the timer!" I shouted, breathless, clutching my abdomen as a real, terrifying contraction gripped my uterus. "The receiver on the drums—it has a manual countdown! The switch was only the remote trigger!"
Mercer scrambled to his feet, tucking the transmitter into his vest, and rushed to the plastic drums.
*00:06:12.*
Six minutes.
The digital clock on the master console was ticking down ruthlessly. A tangle of multicolored wires connected the blasting cap to the main timer.
"I’m a homicide cop, Serena, not a bomb technician!" Mercer yelled, pulling out his tactical flashlight. "Which wire cuts the feed?!"
"None of them!" I panted, leaning heavily against the brick archway, sweat pouring down my temples. "It’s an anti-tamper circuit! You cut the wire, the circuit breaks, and the blasting cap ignites! Look at the shut-off valve behind the pillar! The emergency fire suppression intake!"
Mercer shone his light into the shadows behind the industrial drums. There, mounted to the main water line of the estate, was a massive iron wheel locked with a heavy brass master padlock.
"It’s padlocked!" Mercer called out.
"Matthias has the key," I whispered, turning my gaze toward my husband.
Matthias looked up, his face pale as paper, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "I... I don't..."
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"Matthias," I said, my voice dropping into a lethal, venomous growl that made him flinch. "You put that key on your personal ring three days ago when you told me you were inspecting the furnace. Give him the key, or so help me God, I will let this house collapse on top of you."
***
