Chapter 12 - The Trojan Horse
Back at the Bedford estate, the storm had reached its peak, dumping six inches of fresh snow over the bodies of Damian’s fallen sentries.
Julian stood inside the old wooden barn at the edge of the property, surrounded by twenty of his elite tactical operators.
He opened his ruggedized tablet one final time, accessing the internal home automation network of his mansion via his encrypted sovereign backdoor.
He did not want to wage a chaotic, destructive room-to-room gunfight that would destroy the architectural beauty of the home he had built.
He wanted to isolate the rats, disorient them, and trap them inside a psychological cage that would break their minds before he took their lives.
With a single tap of his finger, Julian initiated the automated lockdown sequence he had designed into the mansion's physical security architecture.
Inside the dark house, heavy steel storm shutters slammed shut over every single ground-floor window with a deafening, synchronized hydraulic thud.
The reinforced oak doors leading to the exterior courtyard locked automatically with electromagnetic deadbolts that required a ten-digit cryptographic key to release.
In the second-floor corridor, Damian and Rosalind froze in terror as the sound of slamming steel barriers echoed through the pitch-black house.
“What was that?!” Rosalind screamed, dropping her tactical flashlight as the sudden noise reverberated off the marble walls like gunfire.
“He locked the shutters!” Damian yelled, scrambling toward the master bedroom door only to hear the heavy electronic lock click shut before his eyes.
They were completely sealed inside the central residential wing of the mansion, unable to reach the sub-basement tunnels or the exterior exits.
Suddenly, the built-in surround-sound audio speakers mounted in the ceiling of the corridor crackled to life with a blast of static.
A slow, rhythmic, chilling sound began to broadcast through the entire house at maximum volume—the sound of Julian’s own calm, measured footsteps.
It was an audio recording Julian had taken during his morning walks through the gallery, amplified to sound as though a giant were pacing the halls.
Thump... thump... thump...
“Turn it off!” Rosalind shrieked, covering her ears as the sound of her husband’s approaching footsteps echoed from every room simultaneously.
“Where is he coming from?!” Damian roared, aiming his pistol blindly at the ceiling speakers as sweat poured down his trembling face.
He fired two wild shots into the plaster molding, but the relentless, rhythmic thumping of the footsteps continued to echo without interruption.
Julian stood outside in the falling snow, watching the thermal imaging sensor on his tablet display the two frantic heat signatures pacing upstairs.
He turned to Marcus, folding his tablet and sliding it into the pocket of his heavy black overcoat with cold, lethal calculation.
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“The trap is sprung, and the rats are blind,” Julian said, checking the magazine of his suppressed Sig Sauer one last time.
“Open the service entrance with the override key; it is time for the master of the house to return.”
