Chapter 5 - Out of the Smoke
In the surveillance van, Jasmine’s heart stopped as the video feeds flickered into static. The sound of gunfire and choking coughs erupted through her earpiece.
"Jackson! Jackson, answer me!" she cried, her hands flying over her keyboard as she tried frantically to override the security lock on the facility’s fire doors.
"We’re... we’re okay," Marcus’s voice came through, gasping for air amidst the sounds of automatic weapon fire. "They’ve got us pinned down in the mainframe room. We need an exit, Jasmine! The smoke is too thick!"
Jasmine forced her panic down, replacing it with the icy, survival instinct she had forged during her darkest days. She zoomed in on the architectural blueprints of the Newark facility.
"The server cooling system!" Jasmine shouted. "There’s a high-pressure liquid nitrogen exhaust vent on the south wall of the mainframe room. If you rupture the primary valve, the pressure differential will blow the exterior wall outward. It’s a twenty-foot drop into the canal below, but it’s your only way out!"
Inside the smoke-filled room, Jackson dodged a hail of bullets, sliding behind a server rack. His eyes locked onto the massive blue pipe labeled Liquid Nitrogen - High Pressure. He pulled a high-explosive thermite charge from his tactical belt and slapped it onto the pipe’s main valve.
"Marcus! Cover your face! We’re going for a swim!" Jackson roared, pulling Marcus behind a heavy metal server chassis.
Jackson detonated the charge.
A deafening, earth-shattering explosion rocked the building. The sudden, violent release of pressurized nitrogen gas created a massive shockwave that blasted the reinforced brick wall of the facility completely outward, sending a shower of debris and freezing fog into the dark night.
Without hesitation, Jackson and Marcus threw themselves through the gaping hole, falling twenty feet through the cold air before crashing into the freezing, dark waters of the Passaic River canal.
They surfaced gasping for air, the current carrying them away from the burning facility as sirens wailed in the distance.
Ten minutes later, the back doors of the surveillance van flew open, and a shivering, soaking-wet Jackson and Marcus climbed inside. Jasmine immediately threw dry blankets around them, her eyes filling with tears of relief as she held Jackson close, feeling the cold water dripping from his hair onto her skin.
"Did you get it?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
Marcus, despite shivering violently, managed a grim, triumphant smile. He held up a rugged, encrypted solid-state drive they had ripped from the mainframe seconds before the explosion.
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"We got it," Marcus gasped. "The entire history of Vance Enterprises, their illegal weapons manifests, and their wire transfers to our foundation. We have her."
Jackson pulled Jasmine into a deep, desperate kiss, his cold lips warming against hers. "I told you, sweetheart," he murmured against her mouth. "No one takes our family away."
