Chapter 7 - The Warehouse Breach
The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the asphalt of the industrial district into a slick, shimmering mirror reflecting the harsh sodium glow of overhead streetlights. I sat in the passenger seat of an unmarked police van parked two blocks away from Vance Development’s primary storage warehouse.
Detective Voss sat in the driver's seat, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel as she monitored a digital tablet displaying the warehouse’s perimeter security feed.
'The private security patrol makes their rounds every twenty minutes,' Voss whispered, pointing at the screen. 'You’ve got exactly twelve minutes between the time Guard A clears the south loading bay and Guard B starts his sweep from the front office.'
'Twelve minutes is more than enough,' I murmured, checking the battery on my specialized multi-port data bridge device.
I was dressed head-to-toe in matte black tactical gear, my left arm wrapped securely under a flexible compression sleeve that cushioned the healing burn scars. I slipped out of the van into the freezing downpour, moving with quiet, deliberate speed toward the rear perimeter fence of the warehouse complex.
Using a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters Voss had provided, I made quick, silent work of the chain-link fence, slipping through the gap into the shadowy courtyard behind the building.
The loading bay door was secured by a heavy electronic mag-lock. I pulled my data bridge from my belt, plugging its interface cable directly into the external diagnostic port beside the keypad.
On the small LCD screen of my device, lines of raw code scrolled past at blinding speed. I punched in a brute-force bypass script tailored to the specific firmware model of the lock. Three seconds later, a soft click echoed in the rain, and the heavy metal door slid upward with a faint hiss.
I slipped inside into the cavernous, dark interior of the warehouse, which smelled heavily of industrial solvent, damp cardboard, and dust.
Navigating by memory from the architectural blue-prints I had memorized earlier that day, I hurried toward my father’s private second-floor administrative office overlooking the main storage floor.
The office door was unlocked—typical of my father’s arrogant hubris. I stepped inside, closing the door softly behind me and flicking on a small pen-light.
The desk was pristine, dominated by a high-end desktop workstation connected to an external encrypted server tower sitting on the floor.
I dropped to my knees beside the tower, pulling a high-speed solid-state cloning drive from my tactical vest, and plugged it directly into the server’s primary motherboard port.
A command prompt window popped up on the desktop monitor. I typed in my override commands, initiating a full data mirror of the server’s encrypted communication archives.
Progress bar: 15%... 45%... 70%...
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from the hallway outside the office door.
'Hey! Who’s down there?' a gruff voice shouted, followed by the heavy clop of tactical boots approaching up the metal staircase.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Progress bar: 88%... 94%...
The door handle jiggled violently.
'Damn it, maintenance left the latch open again,' the guard muttered outside, his hand pushing the heavy wooden door inward.
Progress bar: 99%... 100%!
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'Complete,' flashed on the tiny LCD screen of my cloning drive.
Without hesitation, I yanked the cable free, dove behind a heavy filing cabinet just as the office door swung wide open, and held my breath as a beam of a heavy-duty flashlight swept across the room.
