Chapter 6 - The Breach
"What the hell was that?!" Conrad yelled, reaching into his jacket and pulling a snub-nosed revolver from an armpit holster.
Radio chatter exploded from the hallway as Vance's guards scrambled toward the east wing.
"Sir! We've got a breach at the conservatory!" a guard shouted over the comms. "Two armed intruders in dark gear! They're taking out the perimeter lights!"
Conrad cursed under his breath, turning toward the door. "Stay here, Jasper! Guards, lock down the library!"
Two heavy set guards in tactical gear stepped into the library, drawing their sidearms and pointing them at Jasper.
"Don't move, Mr. Concincaid," one of them said.
Jasper didn't move. He simply looked down at his wristwatch. 11:42 PM.
Leo was doing his job. The breach at the conservatory was a distraction—a high-tech decoy system Leo had deployed to draw Vance's primary security force to the opposite side of the three-story estate.
As soon as Conrad and his men sprinted down the long east corridor, the library's heavy oak floorboards gave a sudden, violent shudder.
From deep beneath the house came a sound that froze the two guards in their tracks.
It wasn't a rat. It wasn't an animal whining.
It was the ferocious, unrestrained roar of a hundred-and-fifty-pound mastiff, followed by the heavy, thundering crunch of iron meeting brick.
Jasper moved before the guards could react.
He lunged forward, grabbing the wrist of the nearest guard, twisting it violently downward until the pistol clattered to the floor. In the same motion, Jasper drove his elbow hard into the second guard's sternum, sending him stumbling back into a bookshelf.
Jasper grabbed the dropped pistol from the floor, hit the second guard across the jaw with the heavy steel frame, and sprinted out of the library into the dark corridor.
He didn't run toward the east wing where the alarms were blaring. He ran straight toward the west wing—toward Jonah's room.
When he burst through the door, he found Jonah sitting on his bed, clutching the teddy bear, his eyes wide in the red pulse of the emergency lights.
"Come on, buddy!" Jasper shouted, scooping the boy up in his left arm while holding the pistol in his right. "We're finishing this tonight!"
They sprinted down the grand staircase, past the panic-stricken servants, straight down into the cold, dark depths of the cellar.
The sound of impact grew deafening.
CRACK! CRACK! BOOM!
When Jasper reached the sub-basement, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Leo was there, wielding a heavy steel crowbar, driving it into the cracked mortar lines of the fresh brick wall. Beside him, Brutus was hurling his massive body against the weakened stone, his iron shoulders cracking the masonry wide open.
"We've got five minutes before Conrad realizes the conservatory attack was a ghost!" Leo yelled over the noise, wiping sweat from his forehead.
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"Put your back into it!" Jasper shouted, setting Jonah down in a safe corner.
Jasper grabbed a heavy iron sledgehammer leaning against a wooden crate, swung it high above his shoulder, and smashed it into the center of the fresh brick wall.
