Chapter 267: The Subterranean Route
The central police precinct was a fortress of concrete and reinforced glass, situated in the heart of the Macau peninsula. It was designed to withstand riots, armed assaults, and natural disasters.
It wasn't designed to stop a Vanguard infiltration team coming up through the municipal drainage system.
The night was damp. The air above ground smelled like rain on asphalt and distant exhaust. We didn't use the front doors.
The air in the subterranean tunnel was thick, smelling of stagnant water, rust, and decaying organic matter. The smell hit first. Wet and sour. It sat in the back of my throat.
I waded through knee-deep runoff. The water was black. It was cold. It soaked through my boots immediately and pressed against my ankles like ice. With every step it pulled at me. _Shluk. Shluk._ The sound was loud in the narrow space.
The beam of my tactical flashlight cut through the gloom. The light was white and hard. It bounced off the curved concrete walls and made the surface of the water shine. Above us, the tunnel arched. Water dripped from somewhere. _Drip. Drip._ The echo came back twice.
Ethan was ten feet behind me, carrying a heavy waterproof duffel bag packed with four million dollars in untraceable cash from the Jade Palace reserves. The bag dragged in the water. It made a low, wet sound.
"I hate this," Ethan muttered, his voice echoing slightly off the curved concrete walls. The echo stretched his words. "We're breaking into a police station to give them money. It violates every rule of the underworld."
His breath made a faint cloud in the cold air.
"We aren't giving them money," I corrected, keeping my voice low. The tunnel carried sound too far. "We're buying our shield back. If Cho goes down, the Golden Koi loses its immunity."
The concrete under my boots was slick. I had to set each foot carefully. The water was numb on my legs.
"Approaching the primary junction," Nia's voice crackled in my earpiece. The subterranean interference made the signal slightly staticky. Her words cut in and out. "Take the right fork. You should see a rusted iron access ladder leading up to a maintenance grate. That grate opens directly into the sub-basement of the precinct, adjacent to the HVAC control room."
The static cleared for a second.
I swept the flashlight beam to the right, illuminating the rusted ladder bolted to the concrete wall. The rungs were orange with rust. Water ran down them in thin lines.
"I see it," I said.
I climbed the ladder, testing each rung before putting my full weight on it. The iron was slick with condensation. Cold bit into my palms. One rung groaned under me. I paused, then kept climbing.
I reached the heavy steel grate at the top and pushed gently. It didn't budge.
"It's bolted from the inside," I whispered.
Through the slats I could hear it. A low, constant hum. Machinery.
I pulled a small, specialized plasma torch from my tactical vest. It was no larger than a thick marker. I ignited the torch. The bright blue flame hissed in the damp air. _Hssss._ The light was harsh. It threw sharp shadows on the ceiling.
I carefully melted the four steel bolts holding the grate in place. The metal glowed, then ran. The smell of hot steel filled the tight space. Sharp and metallic.
I pushed the grate aside, sliding it silently onto the concrete floor of the sub-basement, and pulled myself up into the room.
The HVAC control room was loud. The massive industrial fans drowned out any ambient noise. _WHUUUUM._ The vibration came up through the floor and into my boots. The air was cold and dry. It smelled like dust and ozone.
I reached down and helped Ethan haul the heavy duffel bag up through the opening. His arms shook with the weight. The bag hit the floor with a dull _thump_.
"We're in," I reported.
"The primary evidence vault is one floor up, in the main basement," Claire said, taking over the tactical feed. Her voice was clear now. "There are two armed officers stationed at the security desk outside the vault doors. They run a standard rotating shift. They aren't expecting trouble from inside the building."
The room was dim. Green lights blinked on the HVAC panels. Slow. Steady.
"We don't engage them," I told Ethan, pulling a pair of night-vision goggles over my eyes. The rubber was cold against my skin. The world went green. "If we assault police officers, the federal government will mobilize the military. We have to bypass them."
"How do we bypass two guards sitting in a narrow hallway?" Ethan asked, adjusting the strap of the duffel bag. He was breathing hard.
"We give them a reason to leave their desk," I said.
I walked over to the primary electrical junction box on the wall. The paint was chipped. I pulled out my multi-tool. _Click._ The metal was cold.
I began stripping the wires leading to the basement's lighting grid. The insulation peeled away. Copper showed underneath.
"Nia, I need a localized power surge," I said, splicing a small, remote-detonated short-circuit device into the wiring. The device clicked against the metal panel. "Nothing that triggers the backup generators. Just enough to blow the breakers for the basement hallway."
"Prepping the surge," Nia replied. "Give me the word."
I moved to the heavy steel door of the HVAC room, cracking it open just enough to see down the long, brightly lit corridor. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The light was white and flat.
At the far end, two uniformed officers were sitting behind a reinforced security desk, drinking coffee. Steam rose from the cups. Behind them was the massive, circular steel door of the evidence vault.
"Execute," I whispered.
The lights in the hallway flickered violently. They buzzed with a loud electrical hum. _BZZZT._ Then they died completely. The corridor was plunged into pitch darkness.
"What the hell?" one of the officers muttered, his voice carrying down the hall.
"Breaker probably tripped again," the other officer sighed. The sound of a chair scraping against the floor echoed in the dark. "I'll go check the panel in the maintenance closet. Watch the desk."
The beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness. It moved away from the vault and toward the opposite end of the corridor.
"One guard is mobile," I told Ethan. "The other is still at the desk."
I slipped out of the HVAC room, moving with absolute silence. The NVGs turned the pitch-black hallway into a crisp, green landscape. My steps made no sound.
I closed the distance to the security desk in seconds.
The remaining officer was sitting in his chair, tapping his flashlight against his palm. Waiting. He never saw me coming.
I stepped behind him, clamped a hand over his mouth, and applied a precise, blood-choke to his carotid arteries. He struggled for exactly four seconds before his eyes rolled back and he went limp. I lowered him silently to the floor, ensuring his head didn't hit the linoleum.
"Desk is clear," I whispered.
Ethan hurried down the hall, the heavy duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He stopped in front of the massive vault door.
"Electronic keypad and a dual-key mechanical lock," Ethan noted, looking at the heavy steel mechanism.
"Claire, the keypad is yours," I said, plugging a decryption bypass cable into the data port beneath the number pad.
"Slicing the encryption now," Claire said. "It's a standard municipal algorithm. Give me ten seconds."
While Claire worked on the digital lock, I pulled a set of titanium lockpicks from my vest and went to work on the mechanical tumblers. They were heavy. Cold. _Click. Click._
The keypad beeped. The LED indicator turned from red to green.
"Digital lock bypassed," Claire confirmed.
A second later, the final mechanical tumbler clicked into place under my tension wrench. I grabbed the heavy steel wheel and turned it. The massive vault door groaned. The locking bolts retracted. It swung open.
We stepped inside, pulling the door mostly shut behind us to hide the flashlight beams.
The vault was a maze of chain-link cages, filled with confiscated weapons, narcotics, and neatly stacked boxes of currency.
"Cho's division logs," I said, moving down the aisles. "Aisle four, section B."
We found the specific cage. Inside were dozens of clear plastic evidence bags filled with cash seized from the Iron Fists and the Jade Tigers. I found the specific bags Cho had skimmed from—the ones with the altered inventory tags.
"Open the duffel," I ordered.
Ethan unzipped the bag. We worked quickly, pulling the stacks of untraceable Jade Palace cash and stuffing them into the evidence bags, matching the exact amounts listed on the original, unaltered inventory manifests Nia had pulled from the municipal servers.
"Four million replaced," Ethan whispered, zipping the empty duffel bag. "The ledgers match the physical inventory."
"Noah," Nia's voice suddenly cut through the comms, sharp and urgent. "We have a problem. The Internal Affairs audit team isn't on the second floor."
I froze, my hand resting on the chain-link cage. "Where are they?"
"They just stepped off the elevator on the basement level," Nia said, her voice tight with panic. "There are six of them, accompanied by two armed federal marshals. They're walking down the corridor toward the vault right now."
