Chapter 6 - THE RETINA SCAN
At ten forty-five PM, the Calumet River was an expanse of black glass, reflecting the cold sodium lights of the surrounding industrial yards.
A heavy rain had begun to fall again, turning the dirt tracks between the stacked shipping containers into shallow rivers of red mud.
A dark grey utility van—bearing the painted logo of an electrical contractor—sat parked in the shadow of a disused grain elevator three hundred yards from the perimeter fence of Terminal 4. Inside the rear compartment, lit only by the green glow of two tactical monitors, sat Gabriel, Elias, and a young technician named Marcus whose fingers flew across a mechanical keyboard with terrifying speed.
Vivian sat on a wooden bench along the van wall, wearing a dark waterproof parka over her clothes, her hair tucked tightly beneath a black wool cap. Her bruised face was pale under the green light, her left arm clamped tight against her ribs to stabilize them against the vibration of the van’s idling engine.
“Perimeter guard is moving toward Gate 2,” Marcus said, pointing to a flickering thermal feed on his monitor. “State police unit is parked near the main gatehouse, but their driver is inside drinking coffee with the shift supervisor. You have a four-minute gap in the manual patrol sweep along the south fence.”
Gabriel turned to Vivian. He reached out, his long fingers gently tucking a stray strand of dark hair back beneath her cap. His skin was warm, his touch remarkably light for a man whose hands had done what his had done.
“The moment you enter the administrative building, Marcus loses video feed,” Gabriel reminded her, his voice low and precise. “You will have an audio link in your ear, but if anything goes wrong inside that server room, I need you to press the button on the transmitter in your pocket. Elias has three men positioned near the dry dock tunnel who will blow the security fence and pull you out within ninety seconds.”
“I won't need them,” Vivian said, her fingers clutching the small metal drive bay key she had taken from her purse that morning.
Gabriel looked into her eyes. There was no hesitation in them, no flinching. The society girl from the opera house had vanished, replaced by a woman whose survival instincts had been forged in the red furnace of Wabash Avenue.
“Be fast, Vivian,” Gabriel whispered.
He pulled the rear door of the van open two inches. The icy night air rushed inside, carrying the heavy stench of river mud and coal dust.
Vivian didn't look back. She slipped out of the van, her boots hitting the gravel silently as she vanished into the shadow of the stacked steel containers.
She moved with surprising swiftness despite her cracked ribs, keeping her body low, using the giant corrugated walls of the shipping units as cover against the sweeping spotlights of the main gatehouse. Every step sent a small, dull ache through her hip, but she forced the pain into a dark corner of her mind, focusing entirely on the rhythmic pulse of her own breath.
She reached the south wall of the brick administrative building.
A small steel door sat set into the masonry, marked with a small red LED panel: PRIVATE EXECUTIVE ACCESS ONLY.
Vivian stepped in front of the scanner.
She pulled off her wool cap, leaned her face toward the glass lens, and forced her eyes wide open.
A thin line of blue light swept across her pale grey iris once... twice...
A soft, electronic beep chimed through the darkness, followed by the heavy, mechanical thud of an electromagnetic bolt disengaging inside the frame.
The door swung open an inch.
Vivian slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her until the bolt clicked back into place.
The interior corridor was dark, illuminated only by the green emergency exit signs hanging every forty feet along the ceiling. The air was cold, smelling of floor wax and old paper.
She didn't use her flashlight. She knew every inch of this floor; she had spent her childhood summers running through these carpeted halls while her father managed the lake fleet from his office upstairs.
She reached the heavy steel door of the second-floor server room—a windowless chamber built directly into the central reinforced core of the building.
She pulled the master key from her pocket, inserted it into the manual override lock beneath the digital keypad, and turned it ninety degrees to the left.
The door clicked open.
Inside, twenty tall black server racks stood in neat rows, their cooling fans creating a low, steady hum that filled the dark space. Thousands of tiny green and amber LED lights flickered along the vertical chassis like stars in a miniature iron city.
Vivian walked straight to Rack 04—the unit painted with a red stripe that housed her father’s local redundancy drives.
She pulled the drive extraction tool from her coat pocket, jammed it into the release latch of Primary Drive A, and pulled.
The heavy steel tray slid out with a smooth, metallic hiss.
Inside sat a black, five-inch solid-state drive module, stamped with her father’s silver initials: AH-LOG-01.
“I have it,” Vivian whispered into her collar microphone.
Through her earpiece, Gabriel’s voice came back instantly, clear, calm, and reassuringly close. “Good. Get out now. Marcus is seeing unusual vehicle movement near the main gate.”
Vivian grabbed the drive module, sliding it into the padded internal pocket of her parka.
She turned back toward the server room door.
The heavy steel door swung wide open.
The overhead fluorescent lights snapped on instantly, blinding her in a sudden, violent burst of harsh white light.
Vivian raised her arm to shield her eyes, her heart slamming against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Standing in the doorway, flanked by two heavy-set men in tactical jackets carrying unholstered pistols, was Nathan Reed.
May you like
He looked at her through the harsh light, his expression shifting from momentary surprise into a cold, terrifying smile that revealed every one of his perfectly white teeth.
“Well, well,” Reed said smoothly, stepping into the room and letting the door click shut behind him. “Look what the storm washed in.”
