Chapter 7 - The Michigan Avenue Breach
The snow was falling in thick, swirling sheets as our armored SUV slid silently into the underground parking garage of the Falcone Financial Trust tower on Michigan Avenue.
It was 11:45 p.m.
Across the city at Pier 41, Falcone’s elite enforcers were freezing in the dark, waiting for a ghost that wasn't coming.
Inside the garage, the security gates groaned as Rosa bypassed the electronic terminal with a handheld keylogger we had acquired from an old contact of mine. The heavy steel door slid upward, granting us direct access to the subterranean service elevator.
"Remember the protocol," I whispered, checking the suppressor on my rifle. "In and out in ten minutes. We trigger the data wipe, download the encrypted ledgers to the secure drive, and get the hell out before the city-wide alarm grid catches up."
"Got it," Rosa nodded, sliding a tactical submachine gun across her chest with the practiced ease of a veteran operative. "Let's go audit some mobsters."
We rode the service elevator up to the fortieth floor—the private executive suite where Falcone kept his physical backup servers and master ledger safes.
The floor was dark, illuminated only by the faint blue glow of server racks and the sprawling city lights visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Two armed guards stood outside the master vault door, sipping coffee and chatting about a football game.
They didn't even see us coming.
Two synchronized, suppressed shots echoed softly down the carpeted hallway. The guards crumpled silently to the floor before they could reach their radios.
I dragged them out of sight while Rosa punched the override code into the main vault door terminal, plugging our encrypted flash drive into the port.
"Download starting," Rosa reported, her fingers flying across the glowing keyboard. "Eighty percent... ninety percent... done. The entire Falcone syndicate financial grid has just been wiped clean and transferred to an anonymous federal seizure account."
"Nice work," I murmured, watching the hallway intersection.
Suddenly, the red emergency klaxons across the entire floor blared to life. Strobe lights flashed violently, bathing the executive suite in an ominous crimson glow.
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"They didn't fall for the decoy at the pier," Rosa realized instantly, her eyes widening. "They had a secondary monitoring feed on the servers!"
"Move!" I grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the stairwell as the reinforced elevator doors at the end of the hall blew inward with a deafening roar of automatic gunfire.
