Chapter 4 - The Subterranean Chase-4
The heavy iron double doors at the front loading dock of the Whitmore Hotel were suddenly shattered inward with a violent, hydraulic screech of tearing metal. Special Agent Harris, followed by twenty heavily armed FBI tactical operators with their high-intensity searchlights cutting through the ballroom smoke, flooded the concrete floor, their weapons raised and rock-steady as they secured the perimeter.
"Federal agents! Nobody move! Put your hands on your heads!" the lead tactical operator bellowed, his voice carrying an absolute, inescapable federal authority that finalized the total destruction of the Cross family syndicate.
Preston didn't wait to be processed under the RICO statures. He lunged through the service partition door behind the altar platform, sprinting down the dark, concrete utility corridors toward the sub-basement processing center where the building’s centralized data routers were housed. I didn't stop to bind his fiancée's tears or negotiate a corporate settlement with my mother Diane. I pulled my travel jacket tight against my shirt sleeves, handed Sophie securely into Agent Harris's personal command vehicle convoy, and launched my large frame down into the concrete bowels of the foundations right behind his shadow.
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The air down here was hot, thick, smelling faintly of hot axle grease, diesel soot, and the sharp chemical tang of short-circuiting high-density server lines running under the floorboards. The industrial wind howling through the surface ventilation shafts filled the subterranean corridor with an ominous, heavy roar that amplified the frantic tempo of my heart as my leather winter boots splashed violently through deep pools of oil-stained drainage water near Sector 4.
I followed his shadow until the narrow utility catwalk opened up into a large, vaulted concrete room dominated by a single row of heavy, reinforced corrugated steel doors. Standing before the console marked Unit 108 was Preston, his expensive wedding suit jacket thrown over the back of a metal tool chest, his fingers flying across a mechanical keyboard as the master monitor wall block displayed a rapid cascade of delete indicators: DATA PURGE INITIALIZED. FILE SYSTEM CORES: TERMINATING.
