Story code: ST-001271
Part 2: The Device Sweep
The heavy, rhythmic vibration against Chloe’s left thigh felt like a localized earthquake. The burner phone buzzed once, twice, three times. The sound of the cheap plastic casing rattling against her keys seemed deafening to her own ears, but Arthur remained oblivious, hammering his fist against the brushed steel door handle.
“Did you not hear me?” Arthur spun around, his face flushed a mottled crimson. “Get on the landline. Call the lobby desk. Tell them to lift this ridiculous lockdown before I fire the entire security detail!”
Chloe let her fingers slip. Her legal pad and pen hit the Persian rug with a soft thud, giving her an excuse to fold herself downward. She pressed her forearm hard against her coat pocket, using her body weight to muffle the phone against her leg. “Right away, Mr. Vance,” she managed to say, forcing her voice to stay flat and obedient. She stayed crouched for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, sliding her hand into her pocket. Her thumb found the physical volume switch on the burner’s side and slammed it downward.
The vibration died. Her lungs burned as she realized she had been holding her breath.
She stood, leaving the pen on the floor, and crossed the sprawling office to his mahogany desk. She lifted the receiver of the sleek, multi-line VoIP phone. A dead, hollow silence greeted her ear. No dial tone. No static. The digital display, usually glowing with the time and date, was completely dark.
“The line is dead,” Chloe said, keeping her expression perfectly blank. “The phones must be tied to the network.”
Arthur swore violently. He abandoned the door and strode back toward his desk, pulling his personal smartphone from his tailored jacket. He tapped the screen, scowled, and shook the device as if physical force could restore the signal. “Cell towers are jammed. They’ve activated a full radio-frequency blackout on the building. This isn’t just an IT sweep.”
He didn’t sound angry anymore. The petulant billionaire who had been whining about his Nantucket ferry a moment ago vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating predator. Arthur walked over to the eighty-inch flat screen, which was still looping footage of the blazing pipeline. He picked up a silver remote and switched the input.
The inferno vanished, replaced by a grid of high-definition security camera feeds covering the thirty-fourth floor.
“They aren’t overreacting,” Arthur murmured, his eyes tracking the frantic analysts trapped in their respective wings. “They caught them. The rats are in the maze.”
Chloe’s stomach plummeted. She laced her hands together in front of her waist, digging her nails into her own palms to stop them from trembling. “Rats, sir?”
“The eco-terrorists who hit the pipeline,” Arthur said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm register. “They didn’t just hack the pressure valves from the outside. You can’t bypass our air-gapped systems from a basement in Brooklyn. Someone had to plant a physical bridge on our internal network. A localized relay. Which means one of those arsonist scum is in this building.”
Chloe kept her breathing shallow and even. She forced herself to look at the security feeds, trying to spot familiar faces in the panicked crowds on the monitors. Her friends-Mark and Elena-were supposed to be on the twenty-second floor, disguised as HVAC technicians. They were supposed to plant the relay, trigger the pipeline safety valves to safely shut down the oil flow, and walk out. The massive fire wasn’t part of the plan. Something had gone catastrophically wrong, and now Arthur was locking down the entire tower with them inside.
“They’ve cut the hardlines and jammed the cell signals so the infiltrators can’t communicate with the outside,” Arthur explained, tapping his chin with the edge of his phone. “Brilliant, actually. The security chief just earned his bonus. Now they’re running a hard sweep.”
He pointed through the glass walls of the office. Out on the trading floor, the uniform crimson lock-screens of the computers were changing. A thick white loading bar appeared at the bottom of each monitor on the far side of the room. As the bar filled, the screens flashed from red to green, then immediately back to red. The sequence was moving row by row, creeping closer to the executive suite.
“What is the sweep looking for?” Chloe asked. She needed him to keep talking. She needed to know how much time she had.
“Unregistered MAC addresses,” Arthur said smoothly. “Rogue devices. The moment they sweep a sector, the network sniffs out any phone, tablet, or smartwatch that hasn’t been pre-approved by IT. They triangulate the signal, isolate the room, and send a tactical team to extract the owner.” He smiled, a thin, cruel expression that made Chloe’s blood run cold. “I hope they resist. I really do.”
Chloe’s hand twitched toward her coat pocket. The burner phone was unregistered. It was essentially a flare gun waiting to go off. She had silenced the ringer, but it was still powered on, still desperately searching for a signal in the jammed building. The moment that white loading bar reached the executive suite, the network would detect the burner.
The sweep moved relentlessly across the bullpen. Row three. Row four. The analysts out on the floor were holding up their company-issued phones, looking confused as the screens flashed green to clear them.
“Mr. Vance,” Chloe said, her voice wavering just enough to sound like a terrified civilian. “Is it safe? If there’s a… a terrorist in the building?”
“We are perfectly safe behind magnetic locks and half-inch tempered glass,” Arthur said, turning away from the window to face her. “No one gets in or out until the sweep clears this room.”
Row six flashed green. Row seven. There were only two rows left before the sweep hit the glass walls of the office.
Chloe calculated the distance to the heavy mahogany desk. If she could slip the phone out of her pocket and slide it behind the heavy wooden modesty panel, she might be able to distance herself from the device before the scan locked onto her. But Arthur was standing right there, watching her with a newfound intensity. His eyes narrowed slightly, taking in her pale face and her rigid posture.
“You look unwell, Chloe,” he said, taking a slow step toward her. “Are you going to faint?”
“No, sir,” she lied. “Just a little claustrophobic.”
“Take your coat off,” he ordered casually. “You’re sweating.”
Row eight turned green. The sweep hit the executive perimeter.
The eighty-inch monitor on the wall abruptly dropped the security feeds. It flashed a blinding, solid crimson. A computerized voice echoed through the office’s overhead speakers, crisp and synthetic.
“Initiating executive sector sweep. All occupants must place mobile devices on the central desk for MAC authentication.”
Arthur stepped up to the desk and dropped his smartphone onto the polished wood. He didn’t look at the screen. He kept his eyes fixed entirely on Chloe.
“Scanning,” the automated voice announced.
Arthur extended an open hand toward her. “Your phone, Chloe. Put it on the desk.”
The burner felt like a lump of burning coal against her thigh. If she handed it over, the system would immediately flag it as a rogue device, and Arthur would know exactly who was trapped in the room with him. If she refused, the scanner would detect it on her person anyway, with the exact same result.
“Warning. Unauthorized device detected in perimeter,” the voice droned, the red lights in the room pulsing in time with the words. “Locating.”