Chapter 6 - The Blocked Call
The shrill ringing of Detective Miller’s desk phone cut through the muffled murmurs of the squad room outside like a siren. Miller stared at the flashing red light on the handset, his brow furrowing deeply as he looked from the blinking screen up to Julian, whose face had gone entirely bloodless.
"Don't answer it," Julian whispered, stepping defensively in front of the chair where Clara sat clutching her stomach, rocking back and forth through a wave of agonizing contractions. "That's them. That's the person who called my phone on the highway. They're tracking us."
Miller didn't hesitate. Instead of letting the phone go to voicemail, he pressed the speakerphone button with the tip of his pen, his expression hardening into that of a seasoned homicide investigator taking control of a crime scene. "Detective Miller, Major Crimes. State your name and business."
For a second, there was only dead silence on the line, save for the faint, rhythmic ticking of a clock somewhere in the room. Then, a low, synthesized voice chuckled softly through the speaker.
"Detective Miller. It’s always a pleasure to speak with an officer of the law who thinks he’s smarter than the system," the voice mocked, dripping with cold amusement. "You really should advise your civilian friend here to drop his little crusade. Running to the police station doesn't change the fundamental reality of the boardrooms and the bank accounts, Detective."
Miller leaned down over the desk, his eyes narrowing as he punched a series of rapid keystrokes into his secure police terminal to initiate a trace on the incoming signal. "You're speaking on a secure police precinct line, pal. That means we've already initiated a positive trace on your location. You've got about thirty seconds to hang up before we pull your coordinates and dispatch a tactical unit to your front door."
A harsh laugh crackled through the speaker. "A trace? Detective, please. Do you really think Marcus Vance hasn't owned the telecom routing tables in this precinct for the last five years? Look at your monitor, Detective. Go ahead. Check the trace status."
Miller’s fingers flew across his keyboard, executing a deep-packet network diagnostic. Within three seconds, the green progress bar on his screen suddenly flickered, turned bright red, and crashed with an error code: Access Denied – Firewall Override Detected. Miller cursed under his breath, hammering the enter key to bypass the block, but the terminal locked down entirely, displaying a blinking corporate logo for Vance Industries across his desktop monitor.
"Damn it," Miller muttered, slamming his fist lightly against the desk. "They've locked us out of our own routing server. This is an inside job at the department level."
"I told you," Julian said, his voice laced with bitter resignation. He knelt beside Clara, brushing the damp strands of brown hair away from her sweaty forehead. "They control everything. Money, politics, the police force. We aren't safe anywhere in this city."
"We are safe in this room," Miller insisted, stepping around his desk to retrieve his service weapon from his shoulder holster, checking the magazine with a practiced click. "Until someone physically kicks these doors down, this is federal and state jurisdiction inside a secure federal precinct building. They can hack the servers, but they can't walk into a major crimes squad room with a weapon without setting off every alarm in the district."
As if in direct mockery of Miller’s confidence, the fluorescent lights overhead flickered violently once, twice, and then plunged the entire third-floor squad room into absolute darkness. Emergency backup generators kicked in a second later, bathing the room in a dull, sickly amber glow from the low-voltage ceiling strips. Outside Miller’s office glass, the chaotic chatter of the squad room abruptly died down, replaced by an eerie, unnatural silence.
"What's happening?" Clara gasped, her fingers digging painfully into Julian’s forearm as another sharp contraction tore through her body. "Julian, the baby... I think it's coming. Right now."
Julian looked up at Miller, panic overriding his exhaustion. "Tom, we need an ambulance, we need a medic, we need to get her out of here—"
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Before Miller could reach the door to check the hallway, the heavy wooden panels of his office entrance shuddered under the impact of a massive, coordinated blow from the outside. Someone was trying to break the lock.
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