Chapter 14 - The Voice on the Baby Monitor
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Inside the glowing server room, banks of high-definition monitors showed every corner of Whitaker Hall: the fifty terrified guests huddled by the terrace fountain, the state police cruisers finally arriving outside the locked front driveway gates a quarter-mile away, and—on the center monitor—the master study down the hall.
Standing inside Evan’s wood-paneled master study in front of the concealed vault wall were Arthur Pendelton and Vanessa Sterling.
On the digital countdown clock mounted above the vault’s steel door, the red numbers ticked down: 00:01:12... 00:01:11...
Across the mahogany desk sat Arthur’s open briefcase and a satellite laptop connected to their offshore buyer in Zurich, ready to execute the immediate liquidation of Whitaker Pharmaceuticals the instant the thermal-bypass relay unlocked the vault at 12:00 PM.
"Look at the master override switch," Grace pointed, bracing herself against the server console as she flipped open the red safety cover on the fire-lockdown panel. "If I flip this breaker right now, the steel shutters open and the vault relay resets—which means Arthur and Vanessa will know immediately that we have the control room, and they’ll run for the helicopter on the front lawn before the police at the gate can breach the driveway."
Evan stared at the monitor showing Arthur and Vanessa clinking two glasses of his thirty-year-old Macallan scotch in front of his late wife’s portrait while waiting for the vault door to pop open.
A cold, ruthless calm settled over Evan’s face.
"Don't reset the vault lock until 11:59 and fifty-nine seconds," Evan said quietly, reaching over to the main estate PA and outdoor projection console. "Let them think the door is opening. First, turn off the alarm sirens, kill the cell-phone jammer so the Attorney General’s security detail can link up with the state police at the gate, and patch the outdoor terrace LED screens and every speaker on this estate into my burner phone."
Grace’s eyes lit up with fierce understanding. With rapid, precise keystrokes on the master console, she disabled the signal jammer, silenced the deafening klaxons across the property, and opened a wireless receiver channel linked to Old Tom’s phone down in the bunker—uploading the entire contents of her micro-SD card and the nursery recording directly onto the server desktop.
On the study monitor, when the alarm sirens suddenly cut out, Arthur frowned and picked up his walkie-talkie.
"Marcus? Vane? Why did the sirens stop?" Arthur barked into the radio.
Evan picked up the captured master radio in the server room, activated the real-time voice-modulator software on the console, and set the profile to Dr. Julian Vane.
"Go ahead," Grace whispered, hitting the transmit key.
Evan spoke into the microphone, his voice coming through Arthur’s radio as an exact digital replica of Dr. Vane’s nervous baritone.
"Everything is clear up here, Arthur," Evan said through the synthesizer. "I shut off the interior sirens from the upstairs panel so we can hear the helicopter landing on the north lawn. Ten seconds until the vault relay trips."
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On the monitor, Arthur let out a huge sigh of relief and grinned at Vanessa, setting his radio down on the desk as the vault timer hit 00:00:05... 00:00:04...
At 00:00:01, Grace slammed the red master breaker down.
