Chapter 17
Harrison scanned the handwritten parchment lines, his piercing eyes widening in profound shock and absolute disbelief. "This... this handwriting belongs to my old commanding officer, General Sterling, who supposedly died in combat," Harrison whispered hoarsely.
"It's a posthumous dead-man's switch triggered by someone inside our inner circle who knew his private cipher," Chloe realized instantly. "Who knew the cipher besides Sterling and myself?" Harrison asked, his voice trembling with rising dread.
"Only one other person... your trusted military advisor, Colonel Vance Sterling," Chloe whispered the name like a curse. Before Harrison could respond, the secure automated security doors of the executive suite slammed shut and locked simultaneously.
Every computer monitor in the office flickered off, plunging the penthouse into an eerie, total digital blackout. Emergency red strobe lights began flashing along the baseboards as the building's lockdown protocol was manually overridden from inside.
"We've been trapped inside our own fortress," Harrison stated coldly, drawing a concealed firearm from his holster. Chloe pulled her tactical flash drive from her pocket, inserting it into the manual override port of the encrypted wall terminal.
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"If he wants to play a shadow game, I'm going to lock him out of our legacy forever," Chloe declared with lethal determination. Her fingers flew across the emergency mechanical keyboard, bypassing the main server grid to execute a total system purge.
Outside the armored glass windows, a violent thunderstorm broke over Manhattan, illuminating the night sky with jagged lightning bolts. The battle for the ultimate control of Vance Global had reached its final, terrifying crescendo.
