Chapter 60 - The London Heist
Rain fell in heavy, gray sheets over Mayfair, London. The neon streetlights reflected off the slick pavement outside an unlabelled obsidian skyscraper—the legal headquarters of Vance & Sterling Heritage Trust, the financial front for The Vanguard.
Inside a tinted, high-security surveillance van parked two blocks away, I adjusted the earpiece under my black velvet coat. Beside me, Marcus monitored six live feeds of the building’s security network.
"The server holding the primary audio contract is on the 40th floor, in a biometric vault," Marcus whispered into the comms. "Ethan, you have four minutes before the guard rotation resets."
Through the micro-camera attached to Ethan's lapel, I watched him navigate the dark, marble-lined corridors of the 40th floor. He moved with lethal, quiet grace—a terrifying reminder of the black-ops soldier his father had raised him to be.
"I'm at the vault," Ethan's voice crackled through the earphone. "Biometric scanner requires a multi-generational DNA read. My hand works, but it will ping the Council's primary terminal in Scotland the moment I touch it."
"Do it," I commanded firmly. "Marcus is ready to inject the virus the second the circuit opens."
Ethan pressed his palm against the glass scanner. A bright blue light washed over his skin.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The heavy steel door hissed open. Inside sat a glowing glass pedestal containing an obsidian hard drive—the master repository of every dirty contract executed by The Vanguard over the past thirty years.
Ethan grabbed the drive, but before he could plug in Marcus’s extraction unit, red alarm strobes suddenly flooded the corridor. Heavy steel blast doors slammed shut, sealing Ethan inside the vault room!
"Did you really think it would be that simple, nephew?" a booming, mocking voice echoed over the vault intercom.
May you like
On the wall monitor, the face of Lord James Vance—Ethan’s uncle and the current presiding Chairman of The Vanguard—appeared with a chilling smile. "You brought your lovely Chairwoman to London. How convenient. Security teams have already surrounded your surveillance van."
My heart stopped. Outside the tinted windows of our van, six black SUVs skidded to a halt, blocking our escape.
