Chapter 4 - FIRE IN THE DEEPSGunfire erupted in the confined, metallic space of the server room.
The deafening noise bounced off the steel walls, ear-splitting and blinding as muzzle flashes lit up the smoke-filled air. I dove behind a heavy battery backup rack just as a hail of 9mm rounds chewed through the plastic casing above my head, showering me with sparks and molten copper.
"Daniel, flank left!" I yelled over the din of the fire alarms and gunshots.
I popped up from behind the rack, acquiring the first mercenary in my sights. Two clean shots to his center mass dropped him before he could detonate the thermite charge on the main drive.
The second mercenary turned his weapon toward me, but Daniel was already moving. He closed the distance in two strides, grabbing the barrel of the merc’s assault rifle, twisting it upward as a burst sent rounds harmlessly into the ceiling concrete. Daniel followed through with a brutal knee to the man’s ribs, slamming him face-first into the server cabinet.
Sterling dropped his briefcase, stumbling backward into the control desk, his face drained of blood.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I’m just an attorney!" Sterling shrieked, holding his hands up, shaking uncontrollably.
I stepped over the fallen mercenary, my gun lowered but pointed straight at Sterling’s chest. "Where is my mother, Sterling?"
"I don't know! I swear to God I don't know!" he stammered, backing up until his spine hit the flashing red console. "She called me from the car! She told me to execute the wipe and secure the drive or I’d end up like your father!"
I grabbed Sterling by the lapels of his three-thousand-dollar suit and slammed him against the glass monitor. "What did she mean, 'like my father'?"
Sterling’s eyes darted frantically between me and the burning server rack. "Arthur found out! He found out she wasn't just working with Caleb! Caleb was the middleman, Mara! Your mother was the one selling the codes to the Russian syndicate! Arthur was going to turn her in to the Department of Justice, so she lowered his medication doses and replaced them with synthetic toxins!"
A cold, lethal stillness washed over me.
All this time, I thought Caleb was the mastermind—a greedy, jealous brother who wanted his sister out of the way to take the family throne. But Caleb was just a useful idiot. A meat shield deployed by my mother to take the fall if things went wrong.
"Where is she going?" I demanded, my voice dropping to a whisper that sounded far more dangerous than a scream.
"The airpark," Sterling sobbed, tears cutting lines through the soot on his face. "Private airfield in Warrenton. Her plane leaves for Dubai in twenty minutes!"
Daniel checked his watch. "Traffic’s jammed on I-66. We’ll never make it by road."
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I looked at the server terminal. The thermite charge on the secondary rack was beginning to smoke, sizzling toward the core data drives that held the proof of her crimes.
"Daniel, secure Sterling and call General Vance. Get a military chopper in the air now," I said, grabbing the leather briefcase Sterling had dropped. "I'm not letting her leave this country."
