Chapter 6 - The Boardroom Ambush
"They pinged the auxiliary generator's heat exhaust," Carter cursed, racking the bolt of his rifle. "We’re boxed in. There's no back tunnel out of this bunker. The only way out is through that front blast door."
Grace gasped, instinctively stepping between the medical bed where Lily was sleeping and the reinforced steel door. "Nathan, what do we do? We can't fight an army!"
"We don't fight them with guns," I said, my voice eerily calm as the final strategy crystallized in my mind. "We fight them with the one thing Marcus Vance cares about more than his own life: his money."
I turned to Carter. "Can you patch this bunker’s master terminal into the global emergency broadcast feed for the New York Stock Exchange and Hayes Logistics’ international board of directors?"
Carter looked at me, a wolfish grin slowly spreading across his bruised face. "Nathan, I can patch this terminal into every television screen in the financial district and every cell phone belonging to the Fortune 500 board members in under three minutes."
"Do it," I commanded. "And Grace... I need you to do the hardest thing you’ve ever done."
Grace looked at me, her eyes red-rimmed but steady. "Anything. Tell me what to do."
"I need you to tell the entire world the absolute, unvarnished truth on live video. Every threat Victoria made. Every dollar she offered to kill our child. Every beating."
Grace took a deep, shuddering breath, looked at Lily’s peaceful face under the warm blanket, and nodded. "Hook up the camera."
BOOM!
The heavy blast door shook violently as a shaped breaching charge exploded against the outer hinges. The reinforced steel buckled inward, smoke and toxic fumes seeping through the cracked rubber gaskets.
"Outer charge breached!" Carter yelled, typing with one hand while keeping his rifle trained on the entrance. "Secondary lock holding! We have sixty seconds before they blow the secondary hydraulic pins!"
"Stream is live in five... four... three..." Carter hit the enter key.
A high-definition webcam mounted above the monitors lit up with a green recording light.
I stepped directly in front of the lens. My suit was torn, my face covered in soot and dried blood, but my posture was ramrod straight.
"Good evening, members of the Board of Hayes Logistics, regulatory authorities of the SEC, and international shareholders," I began, my voice ringing out with cold, absolute authority. "My name is Nathan Hayes, Chief Executive Officer of Hayes Logistics. For the past twelve hours, reports have circulated that I embezzled company assets and suffered a psychological breakdown. I am here to present the physical evidence of what is actually occurring."
On the split-screen of the global broadcast, Carter simultaneously uploaded the encrypted audio recordings of Victoria confessing to the murder plot in my kitchen, the wiretapped phone calls of Marcus Vance authorizing the military drone strike, and the forged medical proxy documents signed by corrupt physicians.
"And finally," I said, stepping aside to reveal Grace sitting beside Lily’s hospital bed, "I present the primary heir to the Hayes Trust: my daughter, Lily Miller Hayes."
Grace looked straight into the camera lens, her voice trembling but clear as crystal. "My name is Grace Miller. Four hours ago, Victoria Vance broke my shoulder with a hockey stick in an attempt to execute my daughter and me to prevent this trust from executing. Here is the certified medical record, the DNA sequencing profile, and the timestamped threat logs from Marcus Vance."
BANG! CRASH!
The secondary blast door blew inward in a shower of sparks and black smoke.
Tactical mercenaries poured into the room, their weapon lasers painting the walls, shouting commands to drop to the floor. Behind them stepped Marcus Vance, his tailored cashmere coat pristine, a silver cane in his hand, followed by Victoria, whose face was twisted in triumphant malice.
"Shut down those servers!" Marcus roared at his men, realizing within half a second what was on the screens. "Kill the transmission! Kill it now!"
Two mercenaries tackled Carter, smashing his laptop to pieces with rifle butts, while another pinned me against the concrete wall with a rifle barrel shoved under my chin.
The transmission went black.
Marcus walked slowly across the bunker floor, the tip of his cane tapping rhythmically against the concrete. He stopped in front of the gurney where Lily had just woken up, rubbing her eyes in fear at the armed men surrounding her.
"Very theatrical, Nathan," Marcus sneered, his cold gray eyes locking onto mine. "Truly impressive. But you're about ten minutes too late."
Marcus pulled a heavy, signed legal document from his breast pocket and held it up.
"The board voted thirty minutes ago while you were playing computer games in this dirt hole," Marcus said with a chilling smile. "Hayes Logistics is officially liquidated. The assets have already been wired to Aegis Holdings in the Caymans. And as for your live video? A deepfake generated by a rogue executive. The media is already reporting it as an AI hoax."
Victoria stepped up beside her father, leaning over Lily’s bed, her eyes glittering with sadistic pleasure. She looked at Grace, who was pinned to the floor by two guards.
"You lost, Grace," Victoria whispered sweetly. "You and your bastard die in an unfortunate chemical explosion at an abandoned shipyard. And Nathan will be found dead beside you, having committed murder-suicide in his manic state."
Marcus raised his hand, signaling the lead contractor. "Clear the building. Rig the fuel lines. Burn everything to ash."
The lead contractor didn't move.
Marcus frowned, turning his head sharply. "I said, rig the building. What are you waiting for?"
The contractor slowly reached up, tapped his earpiece, and then turned his assault rifle around—aiming the barrel directly between Marcus Vance’s eyes.
May you like
From the dark tunnel entrance behind the breached blast doors, a crisp, booming voice echoed over the sound of the idling generators:
"Federal Bureau of Investigation! Drop your weapons! You are completely surrounded!"
