Chapter 15 - THE COLLAPSEThe first detonation destroyed the eastern stairwell.
A wall of dust rolled through the third floor, knocking Celia against her father. Ceiling panels crashed around them.
“Back to the tunnel!” Tommy shouted.
Daniel shook his head.
“It won’t reach the exterior. Gabriel sealed the lower exit.”
“Then where?”
“The roof.”
Pike returned from the corridor.
“Gabriel has a helicopter.”
“Of course he does,” Celia said.
They moved toward the western stairwell while the building groaned around them. Margaret supported Daniel’s injured side. Celia took his other arm.
“You can walk?”
“I’ve had twelve years of physical therapy supervised by men who didn’t care whether it hurt.”
“Why didn’t you escape?”
“I tried three times.”
“What happened?”
“The first time, Gabriel moved you and your mother to a new apartment before I reached the city. The second time, he showed me a live feed of your college dorm. The third time, he broke my arm.”
Celia looked at the twisted limb.
“That was six years ago.”
“I decided surviving was the only way to keep you alive.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“You should have trusted me.”
“I trusted you to protect Celia.”
“I thought you were dead.”
Daniel looked at her.
“That was the only reason Gabriel’s threat worked.”
They reached the roof.
Freezing wind came off Lake Michigan. A helicopter waited near the edge with its rotors turning.
Gabriel stood beside it holding a pistol.
Two remaining guards aimed weapons toward the stairwell.
Tommy fired first.
One guard fell behind a ventilation unit. Pike shot the second in the shoulder.
Gabriel climbed into the helicopter.
Celia ran forward.
“Stop!”
Tommy grabbed her before she reached the open landing area.
The helicopter lifted.
Gabriel looked down through the window.
He raised a phone.
Every screen on the hospital roof displayed the same countdown.
Two minutes.
“There are more explosives,” Daniel said.
Pike aimed at the helicopter but lowered his weapon.
“Too far.”
Celia watched Gabriel rise above the building.
Then another helicopter appeared over the lake.
Black.
Unmarked.
It moved directly into Gabriel’s path.
Vincent Romano stood inside the open side door.
A medical bandage wrapped his chest beneath a dark coat.
Tommy stared upward.
“Boss.”
Vincent held a rifle.
Gabriel’s pilot turned sharply, but the second helicopter blocked him. The two aircraft circled above the collapsing hospital.
Vincent’s voice came through Tommy’s radio.
“Get everyone off the roof.”
“How did you get out of custody?” Celia asked.
“Later.”
“There may not be a later!”
Daniel pointed toward a maintenance platform extending over the western wall.
“Window-washing rig. It can lower us.”
They reached the platform.
The motor had no power.
Daniel opened a control box and released the manual brake.
The platform dropped several feet, then stopped.
“Weight limit,” he said. “Four people.”
There were six of them.
“First group goes,” Celia said.
Margaret, Daniel, Judge Cross and Pike stepped onto the platform.
Margaret refused.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Mom, go with Dad.”
The countdown reached one minute.
Tommy secured the brake rope.
“I’ll lower them.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“How?”
He smiled.
“I’m creative.”
Margaret hugged Celia and climbed onto the platform.
Tommy lowered them down the side of the building.
Above, the helicopters exchanged gunfire.
Gabriel’s aircraft turned toward downtown.
Vincent followed.
The platform reached the ground.
Pike helped Daniel and Margaret escape across the parking lot.
Tommy pulled the empty rig back up.
Thirty seconds.
“You next,” he told Celia.
“No. You’re injured.”
“So are you.”
“I’m lighter.”
“That is not an argument.”
The roof split near the stairwell.
Flames erupted through the opening.
Ten seconds.
The platform was still rising.
It would never arrive in time.
Tommy looked toward a drainage cable attached to the building’s exterior.
“We climb down.”
“That cable is three stories long.”
“Then don’t look.”
They secured themselves with maintenance harnesses and stepped over the edge.
The final explosion tore through the roof.
Celia felt herself falling.
Heat rolled above them as concrete and metal rained toward the ground. The cable snapped loose from its upper mount.
Tommy wrapped one arm around Celia and grabbed a lower support beam with the other.
His injured shoulder gave way.
They dropped onto a second-floor awning.
Celia hit the metal surface hard enough to lose her breath.
Tommy rolled beside her.
The awning collapsed.
They fell again, landing in a pile of snow and construction debris.
For several seconds, Celia could not move.
Margaret’s voice called her name.
Hands pulled her upright.
Daniel stared at the burning hospital.
“All those records.”
Pike held up a hard drive.
“I took what I could from the control room.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Enough to expose Gabriel?”
“Maybe.”
A helicopter descended into the parking lot.
Vincent’s.
The door opened.
Vincent climbed out slowly, holding one hand against his wounded side.
“Where is Gabriel?” Celia asked.
“His helicopter went down near the lake.”
“Did you see it crash?”
“No.”
“Then he’s alive.”
Vincent looked toward Daniel.
The two men stared at each other.
“You look like Anthony,” Daniel said.
“I’ve spent my life hearing that as either praise or accusation.”
“Tonight it’s a warning.”
Vincent nodded.
Federal vehicles approached in the distance.
Pike stepped toward him.
“You are still under arrest.”
Vincent looked at Celia.
“I know.”
She stared at the hospital ruins.
“You left surgery.”
“My son woke up asking for you.”
“Where is Leo?”
“Safe with Sterling.”
“Safe where?”
Vincent almost smiled.
“I am learning not to answer that question in public.”
Celia wanted to remain angry, but exhaustion weakened the edges of it.
Daniel approached her.
“I need to tell you something before the agents arrive.”
“What?”
“The memory card was not Elena’s only evidence.”
Celia looked toward Gabriel’s vanished helicopter.
“What else is there?”
Daniel touched the scar along his jaw.
“Gabriel recorded every conversation because he trusted no one. I spent years copying pieces of his archive.”
“Where are the copies?”
“In a storage locker beneath the name Celia Light.”
The phrase from his carved message.
“You always find the light.”
Daniel nodded.
“The archive proves Gabriel controlled judges, federal agents and criminal families. It also proves Anthony ordered my death.”
Vincent’s expression tightened.
“And what does it prove about me?”
Daniel looked directly at him.
“That you knew more about the vault than you claimed.”
Celia turned toward Vincent.
He did not deny it.
“You said you didn’t know it existed.”
“I knew my father operated a detention site,” Vincent said. “I believed it had been closed before I took control.”
“You never checked?”
“I ordered Gabriel to close it.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“And accepted his word.”
Celia stepped back.
“You built your respectable life over a prison you chose not to inspect.”
Vincent looked toward the burning hospital.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No denial.
Only the truth.
Federal agents surrounded the parking lot.
Vincent raised his hands.
Before they took him, Leo’s emergency phone rang inside Celia’s coat. She had forgotten Vincent placed it there during the escape.
She answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Celia Jace?”
Gabriel.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you. For the moment.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing I have always wanted.”
“Control?”
“No.”
His voice became colder.
“Erasure.”
Celia heard waves behind him.
Then he said, “Tell Daniel his archive locker is already empty.”
The call ended.
Daniel went pale.
“My evidence.”
Celia looked toward the city.
Gabriel had lost the vault, the witnesses and his hidden hospital.
May you like
But he still held enough secrets to destroy them all.
And now he knew Celia was the one person who would never stop looking for him.
