Chapter 17 - Descent Into Smoke.The steel cables of the elevator shaft hummed violently as the structural charges Sterling had set lower in the building began to smoke.
I clipped our harnesses to the emergency ascent line, bracing my boots against the concrete wall as we began a rapid, gravity-assisted rappel.
Sparks showered down on us from blown electrical conduits above, casting a hellish, flickering glow over the ruined industrial core of the casino.
Arthur screamed, his fingernails clawing uselessly at my tactical vest as the wind whipped past us in the vertical tunnel.
“Shut up and hold on, unless you want to find out what terminal velocity feels like!” I barked, keeping my eyes locked on the descent marker.
Ten floors down, the reinforced window of the 40th-floor maintenance bay shattered inward with a deafening crash.
Major Sterling’s silhouette appeared through the smoke, holding an assault rifle in one hand and a breaching line in the other.
“Grab my hand!” Sterling shouted over the roar of the building’s automated fire suppression systems kicking in.
I swung our momentum toward the opening, crashing through the jagged glass frame and tumbling onto the industrial carpeting of the floor.
Arthur collapsed into a heap, coughing violently as the thick, chemical-laden smoke filled the hallway.
“The entire local police force and the syndicate’s private army are sealing off the lower exits,” Sterling reported, tapping away on his encrypted tablet.
“We have exactly three minutes before they breach this floor.”
“Where’s our extraction?” I asked, hauling Arthur to his feet and checking the remaining ammunition in my sidearm.
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“Roof was a no-go, so I hijacked an armored transport truck from the casino’s underground loading bay,” Sterling grinned grimly.
“It’s parked at the service exit on level B2; let’s move.”
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