Chapter 19 - The Master Switch
The absolute horror of his words paralyzed my lungs, but my face remained a mask of stone.
Elias had been compromised, or they had tracked the armored van using a hidden federal satellite.
I had three minutes until the Cayman account permanently deleted itself, and fifty armed men were preparing to slaughter my family.
I looked down at the laptop, pretending to furiously type override codes into the banking software.
"Two minutes, Charles," Cortez taunted, casually examining the polished silver ring on his finger.
I wasn't typing banking codes. I was accessing the remote detonation software for the commercial explosives my company used for high-rise demolition.
When Elias and I had arrived at the mill twenty minutes early, I didn't just walk inside.
I had spent my entire life designing structural integrity, which meant I knew exactly how to instantly destroy it.
I had quietly strapped four highly concentrated C-4 charges to the primary steel load-bearing columns surrounding the central smelting floor.
"Transfer complete," I announced loudly, hitting the primary enter key with absolute, unyielding force.
Cortez smiled triumphantly and took a step toward the laptop to verify the massive deposit.
But the screen did not show a successful bank transfer.
It displayed a massive red skull and a brilliant, flashing three-second countdown timer.
Cortez stared at the screen, his elegant face twisting into a mask of pure, paralyzing confusion.
"What did you do?" Cortez screamed, frantically reaching for his weapon.
"I filed for bankruptcy," I yelled, diving violently backward over the metal railing into a deep, empty coolant trench.
The four C-4 charges detonated simultaneously with a deafening, catastrophic roar that shattered the very foundation of the earth.
The entire roof of the steel mill violently collapsed inward, sending thousands of tons of rusted iron and jagged concrete crashing directly onto the smelting floor.
The blast wave threw me violently against the bottom of the trench, knocking the air entirely out of my lungs and raining thick, choking dust over my body.
The screams of the cartel mercenaries were instantly silenced by the crushing weight of the collapsing factory.
I lay in the dark trench, my ears ringing with a high-pitched whine, completely unable to move my left arm.
The air was entirely thick with pulverized concrete, making it impossible to see the horrific devastation above me.
I slowly crawled out of the trench, coughing violently as the cold river wind began to clear the massive dust cloud.
The entire central floor of the mill was a flattened mountain of twisted steel and crushed stone.
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Cortez and his entire execution squad were permanently buried beneath a thousand tons of American iron.
I pulled my burner phone from my pocket with shaking, bleeding fingers and dialed Sarah's number.
