Complicado (Queen of the South, My Season 6)

Part 10 - New Direction

There were two doors, the open one to the right was a storage room. The one to the left was locked.

James busted it open. There was a huge desk and after quickly rummaging through the files on it, he realized the VC always funded construction projects, but they all were overhauls, never new builts from scratch. That made his support for the resorts suspicious.

James took a few photos with his cell and by the time he had gone through the two drawers of the desk, he could smell the smoke.

Once back in the corridor, the smoke, strong and acrid now, hit him and made his eyes burn. The breaching charge they used must have involved phosphorus.

The footsteps above had subsided, and as he was around the corner from the flames, he heard muffled cries and realized there was another room in the far corner. He tried kicking the door in but as it opened outward, he ended up using his pocket knife to jimmy it open. He lifted the flashlight and played the beam over another desk, stacked bankers' boxes and a blondish woman, who gave a scream and huddled away.

"There's a fire!" he almost shouted. "You gotta come with me!" and he took three steps to her and saw her ankle was restrained to the desk. His knife was still open, and he cut the restraints.

"Who are you?" he said.

"Jenna...I'm the secretary for the LIIP...for...ahh...Lancaster...", her voice trembled.

"This way", he motioned to her. "Weird man, this Lancaster! Keeping his secretary restrained!"

She started coughing and once she was able to stop, she said: "He suspects I stole some papers!"

"Come with me...we'll talk later!" James moved fast and she staggered behind. Heads down, they both were starting to cough now.

Once they got out of the tunnel into the main corridor, James realized the escape route didn't exist anymore. The fire had now spread from wall to wall. They faced a rolling sheet of flame and as she cried out of horror, he knew that unless he came up with an idea soon, they soon would both be unconscious from the lack of oxygen. While he kept searching for another exit, he sent her over to the storage room, where he had glimpsed bottled water and instructed her to find two pieces of cloth and to soak them, so they could cover their faces.

When she came back, the massive fireball was close and filled the office with a crisp woosh. Uncontrolled force of nature, mesmerizing to observe if it weren't so deadly. James noticed there were no sprinklers and knew that soon the entire building would be a pile of cinders.

The flames illuminated the basement. He hoped he would be able to spot another exit. There was one but it was chained and his lock picking skills without special tools only went so far.

"Come on", he said to the frightened woman and pulled her by the arm in the direction straight to the conflagration.

"This is our only chance!" he shouted. She looked at him as if in trance and started moving along.

They approached the turbulent flames, feeling the heat on their faces. Just before it became unbearable, James turned left into the storeroom. The flames were lapping at the outer wall as he moved to the side facing the stairs and began kicking the wall until his foot went in. It was a small hole. He ducked and looked through it. The area was empty, but soon it would be engulfed with flames and smoke.

More kicking. The woman joined him and as a piece of the wall cracked, she pulled it free. The whole was now big enough to fit a body through. Both were coughing and starting to feel light headed due to the low oxygen.

James motioned to her to get in and watched her wiggle through and collapse on the other side. He poked his head in the hole and ordered the woman to go up fast as she could.