Chapter 10 - The Trojan Horse
The battered contractor truck rumbled into the subterranean delivery docks beneath Vance Tower, moving through the deep shadows cast by concrete support pillars.
Marcus turned the headlights off, letting the vehicle idle near the commercial waste compactors. Above them, eighty stories of steel and glass rose into the stormy night sky. On the surface, the building looked like a monument to corporate power; beneath, it was an armed compound.
"Surveillance cameras cover every square foot of this loading dock," Althea murmured, watching the rotating security lenses mounted near the freight elevators. "In three minutes, Julian’s dispatch will flag this vehicle’s license plate."
"They won't flag it," Marcus said, pulling a laminated plastic card from his sun visor. "My company still holds the emergency maintenance contract for the tower's HVAC systems. This truck's transponder registers as an authorized service call. The automated gate let us in without human review."
"That buys us minutes, not hours," Althea countered. "The penthouse laboratory requires biometric clearance. Julian’s retinal scan and my DNA signature. Even if we reach the eightieth floor, the vault doors will seal the moment an unauthorized presence is detected."
"Then we don't sneak in," Clara said from the back seat.
Marcus and Althea both turned to look at her. Clara sat upright, her face pale, her jaw set like granite. She had wrapped the infant tightly in a clean woolen work blanket from the truck's toolbox, securing the baby against her chest with Marcus’s heavy leather utility belt.
"Clara, what are you talking about?" Marcus asked.
"Julian wants this baby more than anything in the world," Clara said, her voice steady and clear. "He thinks I'm an ordinary, terrified woman who just had a baby ripped into a nightmare. He thinks I'll do anything to save my own life."
"You want to offer yourself as a trade?" Althea asked, her eyes narrowing.
"I want to walk through the front doors of his private elevator and demand to speak with him," Clara said, looking directly at Althea. "While his security team is focused on securing me and the baby in his office, you and Marcus breach the maintenance shaft from the mechanical floor directly above the vault."
"It's suicide, Clara," Marcus said, his voice breaking. "Julian is a sociopath. The second he gets his hands on that child, he'll discard you like trash."
"He won't touch me until he gets the encrypted decryption cipher from Althea," Clara replied, looking at the geneticist. "Isn't that right? The biological data is worthless without the digital algorithm to read the marrow samples."
Althea nodded slowly, a dark realization dawning on her face. "She's right. Julian can't harvest the marrow without the sequence keys. If Clara tells him she has the flash drive containing the decryption algorithm hidden on her person, he won't harm her until he verifies the files."
"I am not letting you walk into his crosshairs alone, Clara," Marcus insisted, reaching back to grab her hand.
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"You're not letting me do anything, Marcus," Clara said, leaning forward to press her forehead against his. Her hazel eyes burned with an intensity he had never seen before. "I carried this child. I bled for her. And I am going to make sure she lives. You just make sure you're above that ceiling when the doors open."
Before Marcus could protest further, Clara grabbed the door handle, pushed the truck door open, and stepped out onto the cold concrete of the loading dock, walking straight toward the illuminated glass elevator bay.
