Chapter 99 - Infiltration of the Red Vault
The insertion was executed under the cover of a torrential thunderstorm.
Elena descended into the pitch-black waters of Zhoushan Bay inside a two-person tactical diver propulsion vehicle, flanked by two of Thomas’s elite divers. The water was filthy, choked with industrial runoff and diesel exhaust, masking their thermal heat signatures from the coastal radar.
They surfaced inside the partially submerged intake canal of the Soviet-era submarine pen.
Above them, the massive concrete ceiling dripped with green slime and condensation. The air inside the hangar smelled of rusted iron, burning ozone, and heavy fuel oil. Moored against the concrete pier was the black, monolithic hull of the Leviathan, its massive conning tower rising forty feet into the cavernous air.
On the pier, armed guards in black tactical gear patrolled beneath harsh sodium halogen floodlights. High-end black luxury helicopters were landing on the cavern's upper concrete pad, delivering the masked delegates of the Iron Syndicate.
Elena unhooked her rebreather, spitting out the mouthpiece. She checked Maya’s sealed compartment; the baby was awake, looking up with wide, silent eyes, miraculously calm beneath the protective shell.
"Elena to Team Alpha," she whispered into her bone-conduction throat mic. "I'm at the secondary bilge intake."
"Copy," crackled the radio. "Diversion in three... two... one."
Across the hangar, the fuel depot on the eastern pier exploded into an enormous fireball.
*KA-BOOM!*
Shockwaves rippled across the water, shattering the halogen lights and throwing the entire facility into chaos. Alarms shrieked. Guard shouts echoed in Russian and English as dozens of mercenaries rushed toward the burning pier, opening fire into the darkness where Thomas’s strike team was feigning a frontal assault.
Elena didn't waste a second.
She vaulted out of the black water onto the slick steel maintenance gangway of the Leviathan. Moving with ghost-like silence through the flashing red emergency lights, she neutralized two distracted deck guards with double-taps from her suppressed rifle. Their bodies tumbled silently into the dark water below.
She entered the central conning tower hatch, sliding down the brass ladder into the labyrinth of the submarine's interior.
She knew the layout from Arthur’s blueprints. Deck Three was the main bridge. Deck Five was the torpedo room where Eleanor was hosting her murderous auction.
Elena sprinted down the narrow, dimly lit companionways, her combat boots making zero sound on the rubberized flooring. She reached the heavy pressure doors of the bridge. She jammed Thomas’s titanium flash drive into the primary navigation console.
The terminal flashed: *"EXTERNAL MEDIA DETECTED. COMMENCING BALLAST FLOOD OVERRIDE: 00:05:00."*
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A sudden voice behind her made every nerve in her spine freeze into ice.
"Did you really think my pathetic husband's virus would work on my flagship, Elena?"
