Chapter 5 - The Mastermind
The voice echoing through the vents belonged to someone I knew perfectly well.
It was David, the senior partner at my accounting firm.
He had always been a quiet, polite man who remembered my son's birthday every year.
Now, he was standing at the top of my basement stairs holding us hostage.
The lights flickered on, momentarily blinding me with harsh fluorescent glare.
David slowly walked down the wooden steps, removing his black ski mask.
He looked exactly like he did at the office, complete with a tailored gray suit under his tactical vest.
He held up my keyring, the silver flash drive dangling loosely from the metal loop.
I stepped in front of Bennett and Lauren, demanding to know what he wanted.
David smiled politely and explained that the drive was heavily encrypted.
He needed the eight-digit alphanumeric passcode that he knew I had memorized.
I told him I would give him the code if he let my family walk out the front door.
He laughed and said that was not how corporate cleanup operations worked.
He raised his suppressed pistol and aimed it directly at Lauren's chest.
He gave me exactly three seconds to recite the code or my sister would die.
I screamed a random combination of numbers and letters, praying he would buy it.
David lowered the gun and pulled a small decryption device from his pocket.
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He plugged the flash drive in and entered the fake code I had just invented.
The device immediately glowed red, emitting a loud, high-pitched error tone.
