Chapter 39 - The Live Broadcast from Hell
The catacomb exploded into chaos.
Gunfire tore through the blinding chemical fog, the suppressed cracks echoing like thunderclaps inside the stone tomb. Bullets ricocheted off the marble vaults, sending deadly stone splinters whistling through the air.
"Clara, the ventilation grate! NOW!" Daniel’s voice roared through the blinding white haze.
Clara didn't hesitate. She grabbed Noah under her arm and dove into the narrow, square ventilation shaft built into the rear of the vault wall. She kicked the rusted wire cover free with both heels and scrambled inside on her elbows and knees, pulling Noah behind her.
Behind them, Daniel engaged the first mercenary emerging through the fog. Using the calfskin ledger as an improvised shield to deflect the rifle barrel, Daniel drove his combat knife upward into the man’s throat, wrenching the assault rifle from his falling body.
"Julian! Fall back!" Daniel screamed, firing a burst of blind suppressive fire down the smoke-choked corridor.
"Go! I’ll blow the tunnel entrance!" Julian shouted back. He grabbed two thermite grenades from the fallen mercenary's tactical vest, pulled the pins, and jammed them directly into the vault's central gas main connection. "Get the truth to the network, Daniel! Finish it!"
"Julian, no!" Daniel reached out, but Julian kicked the heavy ventilation hatch shut from the inside, locking the magnetic latch with a solid thud.
*BOOM.*
A blinding flash of white-hot thermal fire lit up the seams of the hatch. The shockwave blew Daniel backward through the narrow ventilation shaft, the intense heat scorching the back of his jacket. The entire stone catacomb behind them collapsed in a catastrophic cave-in of rubble and fire, sealing Arthur Vance and his mercenaries beneath thousands of tons of ancient masonry.
Daniel crawled through the dust-filled pipe, coughing blood, his muscles screaming in agony. Twenty yards ahead, he saw the faint glow of an open subway grate.
Clara was there, holding Noah tightly against her chest, her face streaked with soot and tears, waiting for him.
"Daniel!" Clara pulled him out of the shaft.
They tumbled out onto the damp catwalk of an abandoned MTA service platform overlooking the tracks of the downtown 6 train. The deafening roar of a passing subway car vibrated through their bones, kicking up dust and cold wind.
"Julian...?" Clara asked, her voice breaking.
Daniel shook his head slowly, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle was jumping in his cheek. "He bought us twenty minutes. That's all we have."
He pulled the encrypted solid-state drive from his belt. "We can't go to the feds. We can't go to the police. Arthur’s people control the legal channels. There’s only one way to survive this night."
"The media," Clara realized, her eyes widening. "Rockefeller Center. The NBC National Broadcast headquarters."
"It’s 5:45 AM," Daniel said, checking his shattered watch. "The morning news goes live across three hundred affiliate stations in exactly fifteen minutes. Sixty million Americans will be watching."
They scrambled up the emergency exit stairs, breaking through the rusted padlock with the butt of the rifle, emerging onto the rain-slicked pavement of Lafayette Street just as the first gray light of dawn began to bleed through the stormy clouds.
They hijacked a parked courier van, Daniel hotwiring the ignition in seconds. He threw the van into gear, speeding uptown toward 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Ten minutes later, the courier van crashed straight through the glass revolving doors of the ground-floor studio at 30 Rock.
Security guards scattered in terror as the van came to a screeching halt in the middle of the polished marble lobby. Daniel kicked the driver's door open, rifle slung across his back, holding the calfskin ledger high above his head.
Clara sprinted behind him, carrying Noah, bursting straight through the studio access doors into Studio 1A.
The red "ON AIR" light was glowing bright above the cameras. The morning anchors were sitting at the anchor desk, coffee mugs in hand, staring in utter, paralyzed shock as Daniel, Clara, and a six-year-old child covered in blood and soot stormed onto the live national broadcast set.
Daniel slammed the master ledger down onto the glass anchor desk, directly in front of the primary camera lens, and looked straight into the red-light monitor.
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"My name is Daniel Hawthorne," his voice boomed across sixty million television screens nationwide. "And this morning, you are going to witness the death of an empire."
***
