Chapter 5 - The Clock on the Wall
"Julian, you monster!" Nathaniel shouted at the screen. "There's an eight-year-old child in here!"
"Then I suggest you sign the papers quickly, brother," Julian replied coldly. "Every minute you waste arguing is sixty seconds closer to brain damage for little Ruby. The digital documents have been sent to your terminal. Sign them, and I will turn the oxygen back on. Refuse, and you can watch your granddaughter take her last breath."
The video feed went black.
On the secondary monitor, a big digital timer began counting down from 45:00.
44:59... 44:58... 44:57...
A heavy, suffocating panic filled the small vault. I pulled my collar away from my neck, suddenly feeling like the air inside the room was getting thicker and harder to breathe.
"Nathaniel..." I whimpered, clutching my chest. "Is the air going away?"
"No, sweetheart, no," Nathaniel said quickly, dropping to his knees beside me and putting his hands on my shoulders. "The air is fine right now. Your mind is just playing tricks on you because you're scared. Look at me, Ruby. Look into my eyes."
I looked into his icy blue eyes, finding a sense of stability in his calm, resolute gaze.
"I have spent my entire life building this company," Nathaniel said, his voice dropping into a firm, unshakeable tone. "I have fought cutthroat businessmen, corrupt politicians, and hostile takeovers. I did not survive all of that just to let my cowardly brother kill my family in my own vault."
Nathaniel walked over to the main terminal desk. He pulled open a hidden drawer beneath the keyboard, revealing a heavy metallic briefcase secured with a thumbprint lock and a physical keyhole.
He scanned his thumb and turned a small silver key he wore around his neck on a chain.
The briefcase clicked open. Inside was not money or weapons, but three ancient-looking black hard drives and a thick ledger bound in worn leather.
"What is that?" I asked, walking over to stand beside him.
"This is Julian's death warrant," Nathaniel said grimly. "For twelve years, I suspected Julian was hiding something from me. I had private investigators digging into his personal accounts, his shell companies, and his illegal offshore transactions. Everything he ever did—every bribe he paid, every illegal contract he signed, every dollar he stole from Graves Energy—is recorded on these drives."
Nathaniel plugged the first black drive into the terminal desk.
"If I broadcast these files to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Julian won't just lose the company," Nathaniel explained, a sharp, dangerous smile touching his lips. "He will spend the rest of his natural life in a maximum-security federal prison."
"Can you send them right now?" I asked hopefully.
Nathaniel's smile faded slightly as he looked at the network icon in the corner of the screen. A red X was flashing over the connection symbol.
"Julian cut the main fiber-optic cables outside the room," Nathaniel said, his jaw tightening. "The satellite line we used to call your mother was a low-frequency voice line—it doesn't have enough bandwidth to transmit gigabytes of encrypted files. To send these files, we need to connect directly to the building's central server mainframe."
"Where is the mainframe?"
"In the room right outside that titanium door," Nathaniel said, looking toward the heavy entrance. "Fifty feet away. On the other side of four armed mercenaries."
He looked at the digital clock on the wall.
32:15... 32:14... 32:13...
Suddenly, a loud, heavy THUD echoed from the titanium door. Then another. And another.
Through the security camera feed monitoring the hallway outside, we saw two mercenaries setting up a massive industrial laser cutter right in front of the door frame. Sparks were beginning to fly as the intense heat hit the titanium surface.
"They aren't waiting for us to suffocate," I gasped, backing away.
"Julian knows I won't sign," Nathaniel said coldly, reaching into a lower cabinet and pulling out a small, sleek black hand-gun. He checked the magazine with a practiced, steady hand. "He's coming in to take my thumbprint by force."
He looked at me, his eyes filled with fierce protection. "Ruby, listen to me very carefully. When that door breaches, I am going to draw their fire. I need you to take this small flash drive..."
He handed me a silver thumb drive no bigger than my pinky finger.
"...and hide inside the maintenance crawlspace behind that server rack. Do you see that small square grate near the floor?"
I looked at the corner of the room. Near the bottom of the server rack was a small metal air vent, barely big enough for an eight-year-old child to squeeze through.
"That shaft leads directly into the central server room next door," Nathaniel whispered, pressing the silver drive into my small hand. "If anything happens to me, you crawl through that vent, plug this drive into the blue server tower, and hit the big red override button on the wall."
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"No!" I cried, tears bursting from my eyes as I grabbed his sleeve. "I'm not leaving you! You're my grandpa! I just found you!"
Nathaniel pulled me into a tight, warm hug, kissing the top of my head. "And you will never lose me again, Ruby. But right now, you are the only one small enough to save us both."
