Chapter 6 - Midnight at Holloway Tower
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It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when our black SUV pulled into the subterranean garage of Holloway Tower.
The massive sixty-story skyscraper rose into the foggy Manhattan sky like a monolith of dark glass and steel.
The building was completely quiet, save for the hum of the ventilation shafts and the low glow of security monitors.
Grant led the way toward the private executive elevators, his long strides brisk and purposeful.
Mia walked closely beside him, wrapped in Grant’s heavy black wool overcoat to keep out the chill.
I walked behind them, carrying my laptop bag and a folder full of corporate access logs.
“Julian will have realized by now that his keycard is dead,” I told Grant as the elevator ascended to the top floor.
“He’s ruthless, but he’s not stupid.”
“He probably has remote access to the internal servers.”
Grant looked up at the digital floor indicator, his jaw set like iron.
“That’s why we’re going straight to his physical office,” Grant replied.
“Julian is paranoid.”
“He never trusted cloud storage for anything that could land him in a federal penitentiary.”
The elevator chimed softly, opening into the luxurious sixty-fourth-floor executive suite.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a breathtaking view of the sparkling city lights below.
We walked swiftly down the carpeted hallway toward the heavy mahogany doors of the Family Office.
Grant reached into his pocket and pulled out the master override key that only he and his late father possessed.
He slid the brass key into the lock and turned it.
The lock clicked open with a heavy metallic thud.
We stepped inside Julian’s expansive corner office.
The air smelled faintly of stale cigar smoke and expensive leather.
Suddenly, a low mechanical hum caught my attention from behind Julian’s massive mahogany desk.
“Grant, look!” I pointed toward the workstation.
The screens on Julian’s triple-monitor setup were glowing bright blue.
A digital progress bar was racing across the middle screen in glowing red letters:
SECURE OVERWRITE PROTOCOL INITIALIZED — 64% COMPLETE.
“He’s remotely wiping his local drives!” I shouted, sprinting around the corner of the desk.
“Can you stop it, Rachel?” Grant demanded, rushing to my side.
“Not through the keyboard!” I replied frantically, looking at the frozen input prompts.
“He initiated a hardware-level firmware shredder!”
Without a second thought, I dropped to my knees beneath the heavy desk.
Tangled bundles of thick black power cables and blue ethernet lines were plugged into a massive server tower.
I reached out and grabbed the main power cord, yanking it with all my strength.
The heavy plug ripped out of the wall socket, throwing a tiny blue spark into the dark.
The three glowing screens instantly blinked black.
The hum of the hard drives died into complete silence.
Mia stood in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly against her chest.
“Did we lose everything?” Mia asked, her voice trembling.
I crawled out from under the desk, my hands dusty and my hair falling out of its neat bun.
“The overwrite only hit sixty-four percent,” I said, catching my breath.
“The secondary drive partitions should still be intact on the local magnetic platters.”
Grant let out a long, heavy exhale, looking down at the silent computer.
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“Good,” Grant said grimly.
“Now let's find the safe.”
