Chapter 7 - The Blast
Panic was a luxury I could not afford.
The red numbers on the C4 timer ticked down ruthlessly.
Forty-two seconds.
Major Hart aimed her weapon directly at Silas's head.
“Drop the detonator right now!”
Silas just laughed, casually tossing the remote onto the floor and raising his empty hands.
“The detonator was just for show, Major.”
“That explosive is hardwired to a dead-man's switch tied to the server's motherboard.”
“If you try to unplug the server to save the data, the bomb detonates instantly.”
Thirty-five seconds.
Grant stared at the bomb in sheer terror and immediately sprinted back toward the concrete tunnel.
I ignored Grant's cowardice and rushed to the main terminal.
The progress bar for the two-billion-dollar wire transfer was sitting at ninety-eight percent.
“We can't stop the transfer without cutting the power,” the cyber investigator yelled over the blaring alarms.
“But if we cut the power, we all die.”
Twenty-eight seconds.
I looked at the heavy server racks, analyzing the hardware with desperate speed.
“We don't need to save the entire server.”
“We just need the physical hard drives to prove where the money went.”
I grabbed a heavy fire axe off the emergency wall mount and smashed the reinforced glass protecting the server blades.
Twenty seconds.
“Major, grab Silas and get out of here!”
Livia Hart didn't hesitate; she tackled Silas to the ground, dragged him to his feet, and hauled him toward the exit.
I reached into the shattered glass, ignoring the jagged shards slicing into my forearms.
I violently yanked the primary and secondary hard drives straight out of their metal housings.
Ten seconds.
The main terminal screen instantly flashed a fatal error message.
The dead-man's switch recognized the sudden hardware failure.
The red timer abruptly jumped from nine seconds straight to three.
I turned and dove headfirst through the heavy steel vault door.
The explosion ripped through the sub-basement with catastrophic force.
A massive wall of fire and concrete shrapnel slammed into my back, propelling me down the dark tunnel.
The shockwave knocked the air completely out of my lungs.
I hit the ground hard, rolling violently as the ceiling of the vault collapsed behind me, sealing the inferno away.
Coughing up dust and smoke, I slowly pushed myself onto my hands and knees.
My uniform was shredded, and blood dripped from my arms, but my hands were still tightly gripping the two server hard drives.
Major Hart rushed over, helping me to my feet while keeping her boot firmly pressed against Silas's throat.
“You got the drives,” she coughed, waving away the thick smoke.
We dragged Silas out of the maintenance tunnel and collapsed onto the ruined lawn of the estate.
The guest house was fully engulfed in flames, lighting up the night sky.
The corrupt police chief and his officers were standing perfectly still, watching the billionaire's empire burn to the ground.
The cyber investigator immediately plugged the salvaged hard drives into his portable decryption unit.
He tapped a few keys, his eyes wide with anticipation.
Then, his face completely dropped.
“Colonel.”
“These hard drives are totally blank.”
Silas spat blood onto the grass and started laughing hysterically.
“Did you really think the mastermind would keep the real servers inside the house?”
Silas looked up at me with a terrifying grin.
“The real servers are hidden in the basement of Mercy General Hospital.”
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My heart stopped completely.
“And you just left your precious daughter there completely unprotected.”
