CHAPTER 13 — THE LAST TEN SECONDS
Richard struck a suspended cargo net twenty feet below the control room.
The ropes caught him, but the transmitter continued falling.
It hit the concrete floor and slid toward a drainage channel.
Nine seconds.
I ran.
Eight.
The device bounced once and disappeared into the narrow channel.
Seven.
Daniel’s voice came through my earpiece.
“The trigger is active. I can’t stop it remotely.”
Six.
I dropped to my knees and reached into the drain.
My fingers touched metal.
Five.
A security guard grabbed my jacket from behind.
Elena struck him with a fire extinguisher.
Four.
I pulled out the transmitter.
The screen showed two options.
RELEASE
DELETE
Both required authentication.
Three.
Rebecca shouted, “Use my code!”
She called out six numbers.
I entered them.
Two.
The device rejected the code.
Marcus laughed from the floor as agents restrained him.
“She never had final authority.”
One.
Lily took the transmitter.
She pressed her injured thumb against the biometric pad.
The timer stopped.
For half a second, no one breathed.
Then the screen displayed:
ARCHIVE ACCESS GRANTED
A second message appeared.
SELECT ARCHIVE ACTION
Lily chose DELETE.
Marcus screamed.
“No!”
The screen asked for confirmation from two authorized users.
Lily’s identity was first.
The second name appeared beneath hers.
ARTHUR BENNETT
I placed my thumb beside hers.
The archive erased.
Servers across the terminal shut down one by one.
Protected names disappeared from the auction.
Marcus sagged against the floor.
Twenty-three years of leverage vanished in seconds.
Naomi’s agents pulled Richard from the cargo net.
His arm was broken, but he was alive.
He looked at Lily with hatred.
“You destroyed everything.”
Lily touched the bandage on her lip.
“No. I stopped you from destroying anyone else.”
Richard was handcuffed to a stretcher.
Marcus was placed in a separate armored vehicle.
Rebecca stood several feet away from me.
Neither of us knew how to begin.
Lily walked toward her mother.
Rebecca opened her arms.
Lily didn’t embrace her.
Not yet.
“You saved lives,” Lily said. “But you still abandoned me.”
Rebecca lowered her hands.
“I know.”
“I don’t know whether I can forgive you.”
“I know that too.”
Outside, dawn began coloring the sky.
Easter Sunday had ended.
But the investigation had only begun.
Naomi approached with a tablet.
“There’s a problem.”
She showed us the network log.
The archive had been deleted from the terminal.
But one file had been copied thirty seconds before the deletion.
Only one.
LILY BENNETT ASHFORD — CONTINUITY HEIR
Lily frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca looked at Marcus’s vehicle.
Then at me.
Her face went white.
“It means Marcus was never trying to make Lily the fall person.”
“What was he trying to do?” I asked.
May you like
Rebecca whispered:
“He was preparing her to replace him.”
