Chapter 5 - The Midnight Heist
The wind howled through the concrete canyons of Wall Street as midnight struck. The rain had turned into a thick, freezing mist that clung to the dark windows of Kensington Tower.
Inside the darkened lobby, the lights were off, save for the emergency exit signs casting a reddish glow over the marble floors I used to sweep.
"Security cameras on floors 60 through 65 are looped," Chloe’s voice came through the tiny earpiece in my left ear. She was sitting in the back of a luxury SUV parked two blocks away, operating a high-end surveillance rig provided by Victoria’s private security team. "You have twenty minutes before the guard sweep."
"Copy that, Chloe," I whispered, adjusting the black tactical collar of my jacket.
I wasn't wearing a janitor's uniform tonight. Alongside Victoria and two hired elite computer security experts, we were invading our own building.
Arthur Pendelton had moved fast. Realizing his legal options were shrinking, he had locked down the sixty-third floor—where the primary financial server vault was housed—and filed fraudulent emergency court orders claiming the servers contained proprietary trading algorithms belonging to his shell company, Apex Holdings. If the sheriff enforced the order at 8:00 AM, Pendelton would legally seize the servers, wipe the evidence of his fraud, and force Kensington Enterprises into bankruptcy.
We had eight hours to pull the physical hard drives containing the original ledger before his legal team arrived.
"Nathaniel, I’m at the server room door," Victoria’s voice whispered through the comms. She was disguised in an executive maintenance uniform, carrying a heavy tool bag. "The keycard lock has been changed to a biometric scanner. Pendelton’s retina or fingerprint."
"Hold on," Harper’s voice cut in through the channel, sounding exceptionally proud of herself. "I copied Pendelton’s fingerprint from the crystal paperweight I threw at him during the glitter bomb incident. Uploading the 3D-render file to your handheld silicon printer now, Mom."
"You did what?" Victoria asked, incredulous.
"I told you the glitter bomb was an intelligence operation!" Harper huffed. "You guys never appreciate art!"
I smiled in the darkness as I climbed the internal fire stairwell, reaching the sixty-third floor. "Printing complete, Victoria. Apply the gel layer to your thumb and press the scanner."
A quiet beep echoed through the silent corridor, followed by the heavy click of magnetic locks disengaging.
"We’re in," Victoria reported.
I pushed through the fire door and joined her in the chilly, humming air of the server room. Blue light pulsed from dozens of floor-to-ceiling server racks. Thousands of gigabytes of data were whirring past, but we needed the master physical drive—the hardware black box that recorded every transaction before Pendelton’s malware could scrub it.
"Rack 12, Unit C," I said, referencing the blueprints.
Victoria pulled a high-powered electric screwdriver from her bag. We worked in synchronized silence, removing the reinforced steel paneling. The air inside the room was dropping rapidly—a security feature designed to prevent overheating, but now making our fingers numb.
"Got it," Victoria breathed, pulling a heavy, silver-encased hard drive from the rack.
Suddenly, the red emergency lights flashed, and a deafening siren began to wail throughout the floor.
WARNING. UNAUTHORIZED DATA EXTRACTION DETECTED. CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
"Chloe! What happened?!" I shouted into the comms over the roar of the siren.
"They had a secondary physical tripwire on the rack frame!" Chloe screamed over the static. "Pendelton’s security team is in the elevator! They were parked down the street! They’re coming up right now!"
"How long?" Victoria asked, clutching the hard drive to her chest.
"Ninety seconds!"
Heavy steel blast doors began sliding down over the main exit of the server room, threatening to seal us inside.
"Go! Go!" I grabbed Victoria by the arm and shoved her beneath the descending steel shutter just as it slammed shut against the floor, locking us out of the server room but trapping us in the main corridor.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hallway. Heavy, fast, tactical boots.
Pendelton hadn't just brought security. He had brought hired private mercenaries—men paid to make problems disappear before sunrise.
"This way!" I pulled Victoria toward the executive offices. "The maintenance elevator!"
"It requires a physical key!" she panted as we sprinted down the dimly lit hallway.
"I used to be the janitor, remember?" I reached into my pocket and pulled out the heavy master brass key ring I had kept from my night shifts. "I know every back door in this skyscraper."
We burst into the service closet at the end of the hall just as heavy gunfire shattered the glass doors of the executive suite behind us. Bullets slammed into the drywall, raining plaster dust down on our heads.
Victoria gasped, pulling back in terror. "They’re shooting real bullets?!"
"Pendelton is facing thirty years in federal prison if that drive gets to the SEC," I said, shoving her behind a heavy steel utility cart. "He’s desperate."
I jammed the brass key into the old manual service elevator panel. The gears groaned, rusty chains rattling within the shaft.
Clang.
The elevator doors slowly slid open. But before we could step inside, the door to the hallway slammed open.
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Arthur Pendelton stood in the doorway, a silencer-equipped pistol in his hand, his eyes bloodshot and crazed. Beside him stood two armed men in dark tactical gear.
"Give me the drive, Victoria," Pendelton snarled, raising the weapon directly at her chest. "Or you don't leave this floor alive."
