Chapter 7 - Turning the Tables
“What do you suggest we do?” I asked, looking down at Sarah. The hostility in my chest had evaporated, replaced by a cold, lethal clarity. I was a software architect; I built complex systems, and every system had a backdoor. It was time to exploit ours.
“Hilda thinks she has won,” Sarah said, a grim, determined smile touching the corners of her mouth. “She thinks you’re broken, wealthy, and completely isolated. She has the guards under her thumb, and she controls the estate’s communications grid.”
“Not all of it,” I murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“Calvin Pierce,” I said. “He built an independent, off-grid satellite relay into the foundation of my study. It operates on a completely separate radio frequency that doesn't rely on the estate’s fiber-optic lines or cellular boosters. Miller's men can jam our phones, but they can't jam Calvin's hardware.”
Sarah’s eyes widened with cautious hope. “Can he contact outside law enforcement?”
“He can do better than that,” I said, pulling out my encrypted satellite phone and tapping out a pre-programmed sequence of digital commands. “Calvin has direct backdoor access to the federal marshals' tactical database in Nashville. If I transmit the encrypted corporate asset-theft ledgers along with Elena’s true toxicology records, a federal tactical unit can breach this property in under fifteen minutes without triggering Miller’s perimeter sensors.”
“And the guards?” Sarah asked, glancing nervously toward the dark silhouette of the estate’s main gate where two armed men stood watch.
“We blind them first,” I said.
A sharp, electric buzz vibrated against my thigh. I pulled out the satellite phone. Calvin had responded instantly: “System armed. Payload ready. Give me the word, Ethan.”
“Not yet, Calvin,” I typed back silently. “Wait for my signal.”
I looked at Sarah. “We need to get inside the east wing. We need to get my daughters out of that nursery before Hilda realizes we’ve made our move.”
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“The east wing doors are locked from the inside with heavy biometric deadbolts,” Sarah warned. “Only Hilda and Miller have the master override codes.”
“Codes?” I smiled, the last remnants of my grief finally burning away, leaving behind the cold, ruthless drive of a father protecting his blood. “Sarah... I wrote the source code for the security system myself. There’s always a master reset.”
