Read Chapter 35: The Sacrifice

The blast door shrieked as Mercer wrenched it open, the emergency klaxon splitting the air. Acrid smoke curled from the forward carriages, and somewhere beneath his feet, the self-destruct timer ticked down in a language he didn't need to read.

"CLEAR!" he shouted into the swirling chaos of the gala car. A woman clutched a champagne flute, frozen. Mercer grabbed her arm. "Move. Now. Exit's at the rear."

She stumbled past him, and he swept his gaze across the car one final time. Overturned tables, scattered silverware, a single abandoned high heel. No more passengers.

He ran.

The corridor swayed as the Eurostar bucked against the rails, the thrum of the engine now a sickening vibration. Through the smoke, he saw movement ahead—Remi, dragging Vernet by the collar toward the coupling between cars.

Mercer raised the radio. "Remi! Stop!"

Remi turned. Even in the dim emergency light, his grin was a slash of white. He held up the cufflink between two fingers, catching the light. "Your mentor sends his regards, Mercer. If you'd read it sooner, you might have saved yourself the trouble."

Vernet twisted, but Remi's grip held. "Doucet's code—" the scientist gasped.

"Won't do you any good." Remi tossed the cufflink into the gap between cars. It glinted once, then vanished into the darkness of the tunnel floor. "And neither will that."

From the far end of the carriage, Sokolov emerged. His face was a mask of blood—Camille's work—but his hand was steady, the real vial of toxin held aloft in a protective case. His other hand gripped a pistol.

"Enough," Sokolov barked. "Give me the scientist. We leave together, or we all die here."

Mercer's hand drifted toward his weapon, but he stopped. Sokolov's aim was on Vernet now, not him. The Russian was done negotiating. This was an ultimatum.

"No one's leaving," Mercer said, buying time. His fingers traced the memory of Doucet's code—M4R5H4LL—burned into his mind like a brand. He needed the air manifold. He needed power. He needed—

Remi moved first.

In a single fluid motion, he shoved Vernet into Sokolov's line of fire, drew his own sidearm, and fired twice. Sokolov's body jerked, his eyes wide with shock. The protective case slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor. Sokolov dropped, a dark stain spreading across his chest.

Vernet scrambled backward, but Remi was already running—leaping through the coupling, into the next carriage, through a jagged tear in the hull where the emergency exit had been blown outward. Before Mercer could give chase, Remi turned and hurled a small metal ball into the carriage.

Mercer dove, covering Vernet as the flash-bang detonated. White light filled the space, and when Mercer blinked away the afterimage, Remi was gone.

"So," Sokolov rasped from the floor, blood frothing at his lips. "It seems I've been outplayed."

Mercer was on his knees beside the Russian before he could stop himself. Sokolov's hand found his wrist, grip surprisingly strong. "The vial," he choked. "You need it. The formula... truncated. The cufflink... you needed it."

"I know." Mercer's voice was flat. "It's gone."

"No." Sokolov's eyes found his, and for a moment, the dying man's gaze was clear. "You're a terrible spy, Mercer. You disclose too much. The code... it's not just an override. It's a key. M4R5H4LL... it decrypts the formula."

Mercer's breath caught. "Doucet's code?"

"Your mentor was better than you knew." Sokolov's grip loosened, his eyes glazing. "Better than all of us."

The timer on the bulkhead flickered: 00:04:17.

Sokolov was gone.

Mercer snatched the vial case from the floor, shoved it into his jacket, and hauled Vernet upright. "Move."

The carriage shook violently as a secondary blast tore through the baggage car behind them. The floor tilted, and Mercer heard the groan of metal—the train was splitting at its seams. He shoved Vernet toward the rearmost exit, the one where the rescue crews would be staging if Camille had made it through.

"Go," Mercer said. "Don't stop."

Vernet turned, his face ashen. "What about you?"

Mercer was already moving forward, back toward the engine block, where the air manifold would be. He didn't answer.

The smoke was thicker now, closing like a fist. He used the wall to guide him, footfalls pounding against the buckled floor. Through the shattered door of the engine cab, he saw it: the air manifold, still intact, still wired.

And the timer: 00:02:53.

He fumbled for the access panel, tore it open. The keypad glowed. He punched in the code, muscle memory carrying him through the digits, the letters, Doucet's voice echoing in his memory like a ghost: *When the walls close in, Alex, remember what I taught you. The answer is always in the vault.*

M4R5H4LL.

The manifold shuddered, then sighed as the override routed the dispersal system back on itself. The toxic load would recirculate into a sealed chamber, venting harmlessly into the tunnel's scrubber system instead of the cabin.

If there was still a cabin left to save.

He turned. The exit was thirty feet away. Twenty.

The blast hit him from behind.

The world came apart in a scream of twisting steel and white-hot light. Mercer was thrown sideways, his ribs cracking against a support beam, and suddenly the smoke was raining upward, and the floor was the ceiling, and he was pinned, one leg crushed beneath a collapsed carriage door. Pain lanced through him, white and blinding.

He heard the sirens. Distantly. Overhead.

And then a face above him—streaked with blood, wild-eyed, furious.

Camille.

"You idiot," she spat, heaving at the door. His leg screamed in protest. "You absolute idiot. I said meet me at the service depot, not die in a hole."

"I found the code," he managed. "It's done. The gas is—"

"It's not done until you're out." She braced her feet, and the door shifted an inch. Then another. Her arms trembled with the effort, fresh blood weeping from a gash along her shoulder. "Don't you dare leave me to drink alone in Lille, Mercer. I'll find your corpse just to haunt it."

The door gave way. She grabbed his collar and dragged him—brutally, efficiently—through the gap, down the tilting corridor, toward the gaping hole where the rear car had once been.

Behind them, the engine block ignited.

Camille shoved him out into the night air just as the aluminium shell gave way, and they tumbled down the embankment together, into the cold scrub of the French countryside, as the Eurostar roared past them and detonated in a pillar of fire that lit the tunnel mouth like a false dawn.

Mercer landed hard, vision darkening. The last thing he saw was Camille's face, bloodied and laughing, before the weight of everything pulled him under.