Chapter 13 - The Siege of the Federal Lobby
The shattering of thick tempered glass sounded like rolling thunder through the marble-columned lobby. Shards rained across the floor as masked men in heavy tactical gear poured through the entrance, their weapons trained directly on the reception desk where Agent Miller, Clara, and Leo stood frozen.
“Get down! Now!” Miller roared, shoving Leo behind the heavy mahogany reception counter and drawing his service weapon in a single fluid motion.
Clara dropped to her knees beside Leo, pulling him tight against her chest as the first rounds of automatic gunfire echoed off the stone pillars, chewing into the plaster and raining dust down upon them. Miller returned fire with disciplined precision, neutralizing the lead intruder with two rapid shots to the vest, but the sheer volume of incoming fire pinned them behind the barricade.
“They’re not here for the server anymore!” Miller shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire, reloading his weapon with lightning speed. “They’re here to wipe out the physical witnesses!”
Leo peeked over the edge of the mahogany counter, his mind racing through the chaos. He looked at the tactical tablet still clutched in his hand. Despite the network sever, the offline backup protocol he had written months ago was still hard-wired to transmit a localized, encrypted burst packet the moment the physical server box was opened. If the syndicate enforcers reached the basement server before the federal tactical team arrived back at the house, they would destroy the drive and everything would be lost.
“Clara, give me your phone!” Leo demanded, his voice cutting through the gunfire with absolute authority.
Clara didn't hesitate. She pulled her encrypted satellite phone from her blazer pocket and handed it to him. “What are you doing, Leo?”
“Routing the transmission bypass through the emergency satellite link,” Leo said, his fingers flying across the small screen with terrifying speed. “If I can’t stop them from the network, I’ll trigger the self-destruct protocol on the physical hard drive. It will incinerate the platters before they can steal the data.”
“If you do that, we lose all the evidence against your father and the syndicate!” Clara protested, grabbing his wrist.
“No, we don't,” Leo replied, looking her dead in the eye with a maturity that belonged to a man twice his age. “Because I already uploaded a mirror copy to the federal prosecutor's secure cloud five minutes ago while you were talking to Miller.”
Clara stared at the eight-year-old boy in stunned silence, realizing that he had outmaneuvered every single adult in this room from the very beginning. She released his wrist and nodded fiercely.
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Leo tapped the final confirmation key on the satellite phone just as a heavy tactical breach charge detonated against the side of the reception desk, blowing the wood apart and sending a shockwave through the lobby. Through the smoke and flying debris, a figure stepped over the rubble, lowering a tactical rifle and staring directly down at Leo with a cold, terrifying smile. It wasn't an anonymous mercenary. It was Julian.
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