Chapter 14 - The Race Against Time
In his Manhattan office, Nathaniel slammed his laptop shut mid-sentence as his direct-line emergency pager shrieked a high-pitched, piercing alarm.
He lunged for the desk phone. "Report!"
"Sir!" Marcus’s voice crackled through the speaker, breathless and laced with panic. "We have a catastrophic alert. The transport vehicle carrying the children just suffered a complete hydraulic brake failure on Route 9. They're heading straight toward an obstruction. It's a localized sabotage—our preliminary telemetry shows the brake lines were cleanly severed with a surgical tool."
The world around Nathaniel dissolved into a red haze of pure, unadulterated fury and terror.
"Where are they?!" Nathaniel roared, vaulting over his desk toward the private elevator.
"Route 9, Mile Marker 42. Local emergency services are dispatching, but chopper ETA is twelve minutes. Sir—they're twelve minutes away."
Nathaniel didn't wait for the elevator. He bolted down the emergency stairwell, taking three steps at a time, his mind racing faster than his feet. Twelve minutes. In twelve minutes, his entire world could be wiped off the face of the earth.
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He burst out into the underground executive garage, grabbing the keys to his personal custom-built twin-turbo sport coupe from a startled valet who barely had time to step out of the way.
The tires screamed against the concrete as Nathaniel tore out of the garage, shooting directly into evening rush-hour traffic like a missile.
