Chapter 6 - The Ninety-Minute Countdown
The damp South Carolina air hit us like a wall of wet velvet as Julian shoved open the heavy service exit of the Sea Pines Grand Club. Behind us, the automated fire alarms shrieked with an earsplitting metallic wail, blending with the distant sirens of local police cruisers converging on the parking lot.
“Keys,” Julian snapped, holding out his hand as we sprinted across the asphalt toward his black BMW sedan.
I tossed them without breaking stride, my fingers trembling slightly as I pulled my phone back up to my face. The countdown timer on the live-feed mirror was a merciless smear of crimson numbers.
01:14… 01:13… 01:12…
The masked figure in my apartment had already stepped back into the shadows of the hallway, leaving the thermal-detonation charge resting comfortably against the top dossier of my master archive. That safe didn't just hold the family’s legacy of fraud; it held every raw cryptographic key, every internal routing slip, and every secondary backup mirror connecting the compliance division to the federal Inspector General's secure server. If that safe went up, the digital paper trail vanished with it, leaving the Ashford name clear of federal liability and turning me into a rogue analyst who had fabricated evidence against an active-duty officer and a decorated veteran.
“Get in!” Julian barked, slamming his door shut just as the engine roared to life with a deep, guttural growl.
The BMW tires shrieked against the pavement, chewing up gravel as Julian whipped the steering wheel hard around a row of parked luxury SUVs, hurtling toward the resort's main exit gate. I braced my right hand against the dashboard, my eyes glued to the small screen in my left palm.
00:45… 00:44…
“Can we bypass the highway?” I asked, my voice tight, every muscle in my body coiled like spring wire. “Local police are going to lock down the bridge heading out of Hilton Head because of the commotion at the club.”
“I’m not taking the bridge,” Julian said, his jaw set in a hard, razor-sharp line as he threw the car into a violent drift onto a narrow service road flanked by thick palmetto trees. “We’re taking the old maintenance causeway. Private access. No cameras, no patrol units.”
He slammed his foot down on the accelerator, pinning us back against our leather headrests as the speedometer climbed past ninety. The digital timer on my screen bled downward into the final seconds.
00:15… 00:14…
“Hurry, Julian,” I whispered, staring at the monochrome image of my living room as if sheer willpower could freeze the mechanics of the explosive device.
00:05… 00:04… 00:03… 00:02… 00:01…
The screen went blindingly, violently white.
A sharp, compressed hiss bled through the audio feed before the connection instantly severed, replaced by a cold, dead error message: SIGNAL LOST — CARRIER DISCONNECTED.
My heart plummeted into my stomach. I stared at the blank screen, the backlight reflecting off my pale, shell-shocked face.
“Did it go?” Julian asked, his eyes darting briefly from the dark, winding road to my face.
“The feed died,” I said, my voice barely audible over the roaring wind rushing past the cracked window. “The charge went off.”
For a terrifying moment, neither of us spoke. We were flying through the humid southern night at breakneck speed, cut off from my apartment, cut off from the network, and flying blindly toward a home that had just been transformed into a crime scene.
Then my phone buzzed violently in my hand.
It wasn't an app notification. It was a direct, incoming voice call from an unlisted, satellite-linked number.
I stared at the screen. The caller ID read: RESTRICTED.
“Don't answer it,” Julian warned again, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel around a sharp bend.
My thumb hovered over the glass. I didn't listen to him. I pressed accept and brought the phone slowly to my ear.
May you like
“Nora,” a smooth, chillingly familiar voice purred through the speaker. It wasn't Celia. It wasn't my father. It was a voice I had only ever heard on secure institutional conference calls from the Washington oversight committee. “Did you enjoy the fireworks?”
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