Chapter 16 - The Steel Island
The freezing ocean spray whipped fiercely against my face as our stealth boat sliced through the dark, violent waves.
Towering above us in the pitch-black night was the rusted, massive structure of the abandoned oil rig.
Heavy rain battered the metal pillars, providing the perfect cover for our silent approach.
Grace steered the boat expertly beneath the lower support beams, cutting the engine so we could drift quietly toward the rusted maintenance ladder.
I secured the boat to a barnacle-covered pipe and signaled Grace to follow me up the slippery iron rungs.
We climbed for what felt like an eternity, the howling wind threatening to tear us away and plunge us into the freezing depths below.
When we finally breached the lower deck, I peered through the scope of my rifle.
The rig was heavily guarded by mercenaries patrolling the catwalks with high-powered flashlights and assault rifles.
Carlo had clearly fortified his father's vault, anticipating that someone might eventually come looking for the billions.
I used hand signals to direct Grace toward the eastern stairwell while I took the western flank.
We moved like lethal shadows across the grated metal floor, eliminating the perimeter guards with synchronized, suppressed gunfire.
The bodies dropped silently onto the steel deck, hidden from view by the torrential storm.
We met at the heavy blast doors leading into the rig's central control hub.
Grace expertly bypassed the electronic keypad, hot-wiring the door mechanism in less than sixty seconds.
The heavy steel doors hissed open, revealing a massive, brightly lit server room humming with immense power.
Standing in the dead center of the room, admiring a glowing wall of digital bank transfers, was Carlo.
He turned around slowly, a look of genuine surprise washing over his arrogant face.
"Julian, you simply refuse to stay dead, don't you?" Carlo sighed, casually drawing his weapon.
"It is a bad habit I picked up from my enemies," I replied, keeping my rifle aimed directly at his chest.
I demanded that he step away from the server console and surrender the hard drive containing the ledger.
Carlo chuckled, shaking his head in absolute amusement.
"You are too late. The biometric lock has already been bypassed. I am currently transferring the entire Volkov fortune into completely untraceable cryptocurrency accounts," he gloated.
He hit a key on the console, and a massive countdown timer appeared on the main screen, reading exactly three minutes.
Once that timer hit zero, the money would scatter across the globe, and Carlo would become the most powerful criminal on the planet.
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Before I could pull the trigger, the server room ceiling suddenly exploded, raining heavy debris and sparks down upon us.
Carlo had rigged the room with defensive explosives, and he used the chaotic distraction to dive behind the massive steel server racks.
