Chapter 5 - The Midnight Breach
The rain began to hammer against the city streets as my car tore through downtown Manhattan.
Daniel sat in the passenger seat of my sedan, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold his seatbelt.
He was no longer my husband; he was a liability I needed to keep alive until dawn.
Miriam Shaw was patched into my vehicle's dashboard audio system.
"The terminal breach is active in sub-level four," Miriam reported urgently.
"Someone is bypassing the primary firewall using an administrative ghost protocol."
"Whoever it is, they have physical access to the mainframe."
"How is that possible?" Daniel cried out, gripping the dashboard.
"Only three people have biometric clearance to sub-level four."
"Your late father, me, and..."
Daniel stopped speaking, his breath catching in his throat.
"And who, Daniel?" I asked, turning sharply onto Fifth Avenue.
"Arthur Vance," Daniel whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the engine.
My heart seized.
Arthur Vance had been my father’s most loyal lieutenant for thirty-five years.
He had carried my father’s casket at the funeral.
He had promised me on his own children's lives that he would protect the company from outsiders.
"Arthur wouldn't betray me," I said, my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
"Arthur sold his soul to Vanessa six months ago," Daniel confessed, burying his face in his hands.
"Vanessa found out Arthur's son had run up twelve million dollars in gambling debts with offshore bookies."
"She bought the debt, Claire."
"She told Arthur she would have his son thrown into the Hudson River unless he handed over the sub-level bypass codes."
The betrayal cut deeper than Daniel’s cheap affair.
My father had trusted Arthur with his life, and now the entire foundation of Whitmore was crumbling from within.
I pulled the car into the underground garage beneath the towering glass facade of Whitmore Dynamics.
The building was supposed to be dark and empty for the holiday weekend.
Instead, every light on the forty-second floor was blazing brightly into the night sky.
Two black armored SUVs were parked near the loading dock, their engines idling quietly in the shadows.
"What do we do?" Daniel stammered, pulling at his door handle.
"We go inside," I said, retrieving a slim metal flash drive from my purse.
As we stepped out of the car, the garage roll-up door slammed shut behind us with a deafening bang.
The fluorescent lights flickered once and died completely, plunging us into total darkness.
May you like
From the shadows near the freight elevator, a familiar voice echoed across the concrete.
"I really hoped you wouldn't come tonight, Claire," Arthur Vance said quietly.
