The server racks powered down. The room plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
A moment later, the overhead intercom cracked to life.
“I really was hoping you’d just go home, David,” Richard Vance’s voice echoed smoothly from the speaker. “You’ve been a reliable employee. It’s a genuine tragedy that you broke in, tried to sabotage the servers, and died in the ensuing electrical fire.”
The faint smell of gasoline and smoke began to drift under the door.
CHAPTER 4
The server room was essentially a steel vault, and Thorne’s men were rapidly turning it into an oven. The acrid stench of burning accelerant hit the back of my throat, instantly thickening the air.
Download complete.
I yanked the flash drive from the dead terminal and shoved it deep into my boot. There was no way out through the reinforced door, and the fire would consume the room’s oxygen in less than three minutes.
My eyes darted to the only other architectural feature in the room: a thick, soundproof observation window that overlooked the third-floor interior concourse. It was shatter-resistant glass, designed to keep server noise out of the executive suites.
I grabbed the heaviest object I could find—a seventy-pound backup battery unit from the bottom of a server rack. I hoisted it onto my shoulder, took three running steps in the dark, and hurled it with everything I had.
The battery struck the glass with a deafening crack, webbing the surface but failing to break through. Smoke was billowing beneath the door now, thick and blinding. I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed a heavy steel fire extinguisher from the wall mount, planted my boots, and swung it like a sledgehammer directly into the webbed center of the glass.
The pane exploded outward, showering the marble floor of the concourse below.
I hauled myself through the jagged opening, coughing violently, and dropped ten feet onto the third-floor walkway. I landed hard, pain shooting up my legs, but I was breathing clean, conditioned air.
Before I could recover, the harsh beams of three tactical flashlights swept across the walkway, pinning me in the light.
“Don't move, Miller!” a voice barked.
It was Thorne, flanked by three of his private security contractors. They were advancing rapidly, drawing heavy batons. They weren't cops. They were mercenaries paid to clean up messes, and right now, I was the mess.
I didn't freeze. I used my knowledge of my own building.