Chapter 5 - THE COLD RETRIEVALThe impact with the freezing water hits my body like a wall of concrete.
The temperature of Lake Geneva in early spring is barely above freezing. The shock immediately robs the breath from my lungs, driving me deep into the dark, silent water.
Pain flashes through my body, but the cold acts like a cruel narcotic, deadening every nerve ending instantly.
I fight my way toward the surface, kicking wildly against the heavy weight of my wet coat.
I break the surface, gasping for air, the fog clinging to the water around me like thick white smoke. I look up.
Sixty feet above, through the gaping hole in the concrete house, Callum is leaning over the shattered window frame, staring down at the water, looking for my body.
I instantly submerge myself beneath the surface, staying silent, floating under the wooden deck of the lower boat house.
Callum screams something into the fog, but his voice is muffled by the sound of the water. High above, I hear the sudden electronic whine of a garage door motor opening.
He’s running for his car. He thinks I’m either dead or drowning.
I drag myself out of the freezing water onto the slippery wooden planks of the boat house dock. My teeth are chattering violently, my hands so numb I can barely feel my own fingers.
I have less than ten minutes before hypothermia sets in.
I crawl into the interior of the boat house.
Inside sits Cordelia’s luxury mahogany speedboat, tethered to the wooden pilings. But I’m not looking for the boat.
Underneath the main pier of the boat house sits the external electrical junction box—the secondary node Marcus mentioned on the drive out here. The node that controls the off-site cloud mirroring server.
My hands are shaking so badly I can barely open the latch on the metal box.
Inside is a single, glowing blue fiber-optic drive—the physical hard drive containing the unencrypted real-time logs of every transaction made from the lake house server for the past five years. Callum’s master ledger.
I grab the drive, tearing it from its optical mount. A red alarm light begins to flash on the junction panel, indicating an unauthorized physical breach.
The system is wiping itself.
"No, no, no," I mutter through chattering teeth.
The optical drive has an internal backup battery, but it only holds a charge for five minutes once disconnected from the main rack. If I don't get this drive to an active terminal, the encryption keys will dissolve, leaving the data permanently corrupted.
I wrap the drive inside my wet wool scarf to protect it from moisture and scramble up the steep, muddy embankment toward the main driveway.
Just as I reach the top of the ridge, the gravel explodes under the tires of Callum’s Range Rover.
He tears out of the driveway, headlights cutting through the thick fog, accelerating down the narrow, single-lane access road toward the main highway.
He’s escaping. And he has no idea I’m holding the only piece of evidence that can prove my innocence and destroy his entire life.
Suddenly, a blinding set of high-beam lights bursts through the fog from the opposite direction down the narrow road.
A heavy silver SUV comes speeding down the lane, showing no intention of slowing down.
Callum slams on his brakes, his tires screeching violently against the wet asphalt as he swerves to avoid a head-on collision.
vertical impact!
The silver SUV rams straight into the front fender of the Range Rover, locking the two heavy vehicles together in a metal-twisting crunch of steel and breaking plastic.
The driver’s side door of the silver SUV opens.
Out steps Agent Marcus Vance—not wearing a suit, not wearing a tactical vest, but holding a physical federal arrest warrant in his hand.
Behind his vehicle, three unmarked law enforcement cruisers pull up, blocking the access road completely, their red and blue lights flashing wildly through the dense morning mist.
Callum stumbles out of his ruined vehicle, his hands raised in panic, looking around like a trapped rat.
“Callum Vance!” Marcus’s voice booms through the trees. “Step away from the vehicle!”
I stumble out of the treeline, shivering violently, clutching the wet wool scarf containing the glowing blue drive to my chest.
Marcus looks at me, his eyes wide with shock as he sees my drenched, bleeding figure emerging from the mist.
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“Clara?” Marcus runs toward me, stripping off his heavy tactical jacket and throwing it around my shoulders. “What happened to you? Where were you?”
“I... I took the shortcut,” I whisper through frozen lips, holding out the drive. “Five minutes, Marcus. The encryption key is dying. Put this on a terminal now.”
