Chapter 4 - The Fire
The heat radiating from the burning warehouse was intense enough to feel through the windshield.
Marcus slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
“Vanessa beat us here,” Marcus growled.
“They’re destroying the hardware to cover their tracks.”
Claire stared at the collapsing roof of the facility.
“If those servers burn, all the proof that Ethan set up the shadow accounts burns with it.”
“I’ll go down for the money laundering, and the cartel will hunt me forever.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt.
“What are you doing?” Marcus demanded, grabbing her arm.
“There is an underground cooling bunker beneath the main floor,” Claire said quickly.
“The core drive is heavily shielded.”
“I can extract the data logs before the floor caves in.”
Before Marcus could stop her, Claire kicked the door open and sprinted into the smoke.
The heat was suffocating.
She pulled the silk fabric of her dress over her mouth, coughing violently as she navigated the burning debris.
She found the heavy steel door leading to the subterranean cooling room.
The biometric scanner on the wall was miraculously still glowing green.
Claire pressed her thumb against the glass.
The heavy door hissed open, releasing a blast of freezing, conditioned air.
She rushed down the concrete stairs into the server room.
Rows of massive black towers hummed loudly, oblivious to the inferno above them.
She ran to the master terminal and pulled a high-capacity encrypted flash drive from her purse.
She jammed the drive into the port.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing Ethan’s sloppy security protocols.
Downloading System Ledger.
The progress bar crawled across the screen.
Ten percent.
Thirty percent.
The ceiling above her groaned in protest as a massive steel beam crashed down on the floor above.
Dust and debris rained down onto the terminal.
Eighty percent.
“Come on,” Claire whispered frantically.
One hundred percent.
Download Complete.
She yanked the drive from the port and turned around to run.
Standing at the bottom of the concrete stairs, blocking her only exit, was Vanessa.
The beautiful silver gown she had worn to the gala was gone.
May you like
She was wearing tactical black clothing, and she was holding a leveled submachine gun.
“Hand over the drive, Claire,” Vanessa said with a cold, terrifying smile.
