Chapter 5 - The Transformer Blast-5
"Step away from the keyboard, Preston!" my voice roared through the concrete room like a pipe clap of thunder, my boots freezing flat against the iron floorboards as Agent Harris stepped through the rear entryway threshold with her service weapon raised and steady. "The Nicosia wire is frozen! Put your hands on your head and step away from the desk!"
Preston didn't turn around to argue or plead for a multi-million-dollar compromise. With a single, smooth, practiced movement, his right hand reached beneath the administrative desk console, his fingers emerging with a short-barreled compact automatic carbine, leveling the barrel straight at my chest before the plaster dust could even clear from the doorway frame.
"The transmission finalizes in precisely forty-five seconds, Mallerie," Preston whispered, a cold, ruthless smile touching his lips as his knuckles turned a sharp, bloodless white beneath the amber glare of the emergency lamps. "Once the master keys clear the Cyprus firewall, your company becomes our property, and your daughter’s foundation will be liquidated by order of the state insurance commissioner before dawn. Drop the phone terminal and step back across the threshold. Now."
I didn't drop the terminal. I took a slow, measured step forward, my gray eyes locking onto his face with a freezing, absolute finality that made his finger twitch against the trigger guard.
"The foundation doesn't rely on your state commissioners, Preston," I said, my voice dropping into a low, gravelly baritone that carried the absolute weight of my forensic career. "And my father’s heirs aren't an asset on your ledger anymore. They’re the kids who watched their family break an electronic vault with a fire ax. They know exactly what the truth looks like when it comes through the door."
With a sudden, violent heave, I didn't lunge toward the gun; I hurled a heavy steel demolition crowbar I had extracted from the utility rack straight into the center of the massive, high-voltage electrical transformer box mounted on the concrete pylon directly adjacent to the server racks.
CRASH-BOOM.
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The heavy iron bar smashed through the protective fiberglass shielding, short-circuiting the main three-phase industrial power line running into the warehouse grid. A blinding, blue-white explosion of electrical arc fire erupted from the column, hissing violently as the pouring rain leaking through the corrugated roof vents flooded the exposed circuits, showering the concrete floorboards in a rain of white plaster dust and sparks.
The automatic carbine fired a wild, uncontrolled three-round burst into the concrete ceiling panels as Preston was thrown backward by the sheer concussive force of the electrical blast, his weapon flying from his hands and spinning off into the dark waters of the shipping canal drainage trench below. The entire warehouse was plunged into a sudden, pitch-black twilight, the high-density server mainframes grinding to a dead halt as the main circuit breakers tripped, leaving nothing but the vibrant neon-green countdown timer on my personal mobile device flashing down toward zero in the dark.
