Chapter 12 - Fire on the Mountain
The gun battle outside Blackridge Lodge raged with terrifying intensity.
Chipped stone and glass rained down onto the terrace as automatic fire raked the front facade of the grand manor. Marcus and the estate’s private security guards returned fire from behind the heavy stone balustrades, holding the attackers at bay, but the cartel mercenaries were heavily armed and advancing rapidly up the lawn.
"Inside! Move!" Nathan shouted, ushering his mother and Alexander through the heavy oak doors into the grand foyer.
Marcus slammed the reinforced doors shut, throwing the heavy brass deadbolts into place. "Mr. Mercer, they have at least a dozen men! They're trying to breach the rear terrace as well!"
Alexander sat against the foyer wall, his face pale, staring at his hands in shock. "Julian Sterling's foreign investors... they reached out to me yesterday in Switzerland. They offered to help me take Mercer Enterprises... but when I refused to sign their asset transfer deals this morning, they said I would regret it."
"They don't care about corporate deals anymore," Nathan said grimly, picking up a tactical rifle from a gun cabinet hidden behind a hallway painting. "They know the FBI is freezing all offshore accounts today. They came to eliminate every living Mercer heir so the company defaults into receivership under their shell corporations."
"Nathan," Eleanor said, grabbing his arm, her eyes wide with fear. "There's an underground passage beneath the library. Arthur built it during the Cold War. It leads out to the old stone boathouse on the lake!"
"That's our exit," Nathan agreed. "Marcus, can your team hold the foyer for five minutes?"
"We'll buy you ten, sir. Go!" Marcus ordered, turning back toward the barricaded doors as heavy boots kicked against the wood.
Nathan grabbed Alexander by the shoulder, pulling his brother to his feet. "Come on! We move together!"
Alexander looked at Nathan, deep emotion flashing in his hazel eyes—for the first time in his life, he was being protected by family rather than used as a corporate weapon. "Lead the way."
They rushed through the sprawling manor toward the library. Nathan hit the hidden release switch behind the stone fireplace, opening a heavy steel door that revealed a descending stone staircase.
Nathan guided Eleanor down first, followed by Alexander. Just as Nathan was about to step inside, a deafening explosion rocked the front of the house—the cartel mercenaries had blown the front doors with explosive charges.
Nathan slammed the steel security door shut from the inside, locking the electronic latch just as heavy gunfire erupted inside the foyer above.
The underground tunnel was cold, dark, and filled with the damp smell of subterranean rock. Nathan led the group down the long, narrow corridor using a tactical flashlight.
"How far does this run?" Alexander panted, his breath ragged due to his lingering childhood respiratory condition.
"About three hundred yards," Nathan replied, pacing himself to match his brother and mother. "It empties into the boathouse on Lake Blackridge. I have a high-speed speedboat moored inside."
After two minutes of intense trotting, they reached the iron door at the end of the tunnel. Nathan threw open the latch, stepping out into the cool, dark air of the boathouse.
The clear mountain water of Lake Blackridge reflected the pale moonlight. Moored to the wooden dock was a sleek, black twin-engine boat.
"Get in," Nathan urged, helping Eleanor into the passenger seat while Alexander stepped aboard to prime the engines.
Suddenly, a blinding spotlight illuminated the boathouse interior from the water outside.
A massive tactical vessel sat idling fifty yards out on the lake, carrying four heavily armed mercenaries. Standing on the bow, holding a detonator control unit, was Victor Vance’s second-in-command—a ruthless syndicate lieutenant named Santos.
"Going somewhere, Mercer family?" Santos’s amplified voice echoed across the water. "Julian sends his regards from his prison cell."
Through the boathouse windows, Nathan saw thin wisps of smoke rising from the main manor house on the hill above—the mercenaries had set fire to Blackridge Lodge.
"There's nowhere left to run, Nathan," Santos sneered over the speaker. "Step onto the dock with your hands up, or we blow the boathouse to ash."
Nathan looked at his mother, then at Alexander. They were cornered, trapped between a burning estate and an armed cartel boat.
Then Alexander leaned over to Nathan, whispering in a low, fierce tone. "The boathouse has an automated underwater sluice gate designed to clear heavy silt. I read the architectural blueprints in Zurich. The control panel is behind you."
Nathan’s eyes flared with sudden understanding. "If I open the gate..."
"It creates a massive suction current that will pull their boat directly against the concrete spillway," Alexander finished, a dark, brilliant smile touching his lips. "Do it."
Nathan lunged backward, slamming his palm onto the emergency red manual override switch on the boathouse wall.
A massive mechanical roar echoed beneath the lake. Deep underwater, heavy steel gates swung open, releasing thousands of gallons of lake water into the hydro-drainage canyon below.
A violent, swirling whirlpool instantly formed in the water right outside the boathouse.
Santos screamed in horror as his heavy vessel was violently caught in the terrifying current, spun around like a toy boat, and slammed hard against the concrete spillway wall. The hull ruptured with a deafening crunch, the engine exploding in a blinding fireball that lit up the night sky.
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"Now! Go!" Nathan roared.
Alexander slammed the throttles of the speed boat forward. The twin engines roared to life, propelling the sleek vessel out of the boathouse and shooting across the dark, open waters of Lake Blackridge, away from the burning manor and into the safety of the night.
