Chapter 6 - The Encrypted Truth
The bullet struck the brick wall exactly where Sarah’s heart had been a fraction of a second before.
Andrew pulled her hard to the dusty floor, shouting for Ethan to stay entirely flat.
A barrage of suppressed gunfire ripped through the thin walls of the office, shredding the furniture into splinters.
Andrew drew the pistol from his duffel bag, returning fire toward the broken window to create a brief distraction.
He knew they could not stay pinned down in a wooden room against professional killers.
He grabbed Ethan by the collar of his shirt and told Sarah to follow him closely.
They crawled on their stomachs out of the office and into the massive, dark space of the car storage garage.
Andrew spotted his vintage, heavily armored muscle car sitting under a tarp in the corner.
He unlocked the vehicle remotely, the heavy steel doors popping open like a metallic fortress.
They scrambled inside just as a team of tactical mercenaries breached the main garage doors.
Andrew slammed his foot on the gas pedal, the massive engine roaring to life with deafening power.
He drove the heavy car directly through the closed wooden side doors of the warehouse, bursting out into the rainy street.
Bullets sparked against the armored chassis as they sped away into the labyrinth of the industrial district.
In the backseat, Sarah groaned in pain, clutching a bloody graze wound on her left shoulder.
Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of cloth to press against her bleeding arm.
The boy looked at Andrew in the rearview mirror, his brave face trembling with adrenaline.
Ethan confessed that the guards were not chasing him just because he escaped.
He reached down, untied his soaked sneaker, and pulled out a small, silver flash drive hidden under the sole.
He told Andrew that he had stolen it from the director's desk while he was looking for a way out.
Sarah gasped, realizing the boy was holding the master ledger of Vance's entire criminal empire.
Andrew snatched the drive and plugged it directly into the car's advanced computer system.
The screen lit up with a massive data file, but a red warning box immediately blocked the screen.
The drive was protected by a highly sophisticated, military-grade biometric lock.
The computer demanded the physical fingerprint of the original creator to decrypt the files.
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Andrew stared at the name displayed at the bottom of the screen in utter despair.
The biometric lock required the fingerprint of his deceased wife, Emily Whitman.
