Chapter 24 - The Abandoned DepotI pulled a high-intensity flashlight from my belt and pried open the heavy steel door of Vault A.
The wave of heat and foul, decomposing odor that hit me was staggering. The entire room had failed weeks ago, but whoever managed the depot had deliberately severed the telemetry cables to prevent automated alarm signals from reaching corporate headquarters in real-time.
It wasn't an accidental mechanical failure. It was calculated, intentional sabotage.
I walked down the dark aisles, shining my light against the frost-free coils. Someone had intentionally drained the refrigerant lines using a specialized extraction pump, carving clean, professional cuts into the copper piping—the work of a trained commercial technician, not a panicked local manager.
My burner phone buzzed in my pocket. I answered it immediately.
"Owen," Arthur’s voice came through, sounding tense. "I just ran a title search on the Davenport depot property deed. You know who bought it last month?"
"Who?"
"A shell corporation called Apex Logistics Management," Arthur said grimly. "A newly registered subsidiary operating out of Chicago. And the primary financial backer listed on their incorporation documents is a venture capital firm linked directly to Viktor Thorne’s old offshore network."
Viktor Thorne.
The corporate raider who was currently serving a twenty-five-year sentence in a federal supermax facility for laundering Vesper Vanguard’s black-market capital. Thorne’s syndicate was trying to reclaim the distribution corridors from the inside out, choking our supply chain through targeted sabotage.
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"They're trying to force us into bankruptcy through regional spoilage liabilities," I said, grinding my teeth.
"And Davenport is just the first node," Arthur warned. "They have targets on three other regional hubs across the tri-state area."
