Chapter 8 - THE COO'S GAMBIT
Ground Floor Lobby.
The atmosphere was total chaos. The massive, three-story glass atrium was packed with panicked investors, news crews, and heavily armed SWAT officers who had just breached the front doors.
In the center of the room, David Vance stood frozen. The giant LED screens wrapping around the lobby pillars were broadcasting his betrayal on a continuous loop. His face was pale, his hands shaking. The Vanguard Holdings executives, who had been sitting with him to sign the forged acquisition papers, had already backed away, looking at him with disgust and fear.
Cipher, Vance’s hacker, was screaming in Vance's earpiece. "I can't contain the broadcast! The IT kid locked me out of the root directory! He changed the master passwords!"
"Fix it!" Vance hissed under his breath, his eyes darting toward the exits. "Shut the power grid down! Black out the building!"
"I can't! He instituted a dead-man's switch on the backup generators. If I cut the power, it hard-saves the logs and emails them to the FBI cyber division!"
Vance ripped the earpiece out. It was over. The perfect crime had unraveled because of a Level 1 tech support nobody.
A SWAT commander pushed through the crowd, his rifle lowered but ready. "David Vance? Put your hands where I can see them. We have a lot of questions about what's playing on those screens."
"It's a deepfake," Vance lied smoothly, raising his hands, trying to salvage the unsalvageable. "My CEO has been taken hostage by a disgruntled employee. The man is a cyber-terrorist. He's manipulating the network. You need to send men upstairs and shoot him on sight!"
Before the SWAT commander could reply, the ping of a lobby elevator arriving echoed through the atrium.
The crowd went dead silent.
The brass doors of the private executive elevator—the one elevator Cipher hadn't been able to drop—slid open slowly.
Standing inside was Julian Sterling. His suit was ruined. His shirt was soaked in blood from the bullet wound in his shoulder. He looked like he had walked through hell.
And standing right beside him, holding a diagnostic tablet like a shield, was Marcus Reed.
Julian stepped out of the elevator. The SWAT officers instinctively raised their weapons, unsure of who the threat was.
May you like
"Stand down, Commander," Julian said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the absolute authority of a king returning to his throne. "The terrorist is standing right in front of you."
He pointed his uninjured arm directly at David Vance.
