*CLATTER-SHOCK.
*
The floorboards beneath our feet seemed to drop two inches.
Inside the locked server vault at the rear of the production room, sixty feet down the hall, the automated high-voltage alarms began to chirp with rapid, rhythmic, synchronized warning codes:
*BEEP… BEEP… BEEP.
*
`ALERT: REMOTE SATELLITE BREACH DETECTED`
`ORIGIN: ZURICH // FINANCIAL CLEARING INTERFACE`
`TARGET: THE VANCE-STERLING COMMERCIAL REPOSITORY`
`MESSAGE: “THE FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK WAS AN ENCRYPTED BEACON.”
`
`”THE EXTRACTION IS IN MOTION.”
`
`”AND THE MAN WHO PLANTED THE SYNTHETIC GAS IN ELEANOR’S CAR…”`
`”IS CURRENTLY SITTING IN YOUR LIVING ROOM IN LAKEWOOD.”
*
Two federal marshals hauled Nick Sterling to his feet by his armpits, dragging his designer shoes through the spilled champagne and the shattered crystal, marching him down the central hallway toward the freight elevator.
The double doors closed behind them with an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic *THUD*.
The boardroom returned to silence.
The only sound left was the clean, cool mountain wind blowing through the broken glass doors from the hallway and the steady, rhythmic sixty-cycle hum of the servers in the production room.
