Chapter 16 - THE CATHEDRAL FILES
The data center looked like a warehouse.
No signs.
No windows.
No visible security.
Which made Norah more nervous than armed guards.
Thomas controlled systems.
He preferred invisible defenses.
Gabriel divided the remaining loyal team.
Declan took the loading entrance.
Mateo handled the power grid.
Gabriel stayed with Norah.
“You’re not going inside.”
Norah stared at him.
“We’re doing this again?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the only person who understands the file architecture.”
“You can explain it from the vehicle.”
“Thomas could physically destroy the servers.”
“Then we lose the evidence.”
“And keep you.”
Norah stopped.
Gabriel rarely said what he meant so plainly.
She stepped closer.
“You don’t get to decide my risk tolerance.”
“Norah.”
“You hired me to follow money.”
“I did not hire you to be shot at.”
“That wasn’t in the contract.”
His mouth tightened.
She touched his arm.
“Gabriel.”
He looked at her.
“We finish this.”
Together.
He did not say the word.
He did not need to.
They entered.
At 12:03, Mateo cut external power.
Backup generators activated.
Norah expected that.
At 12:08, Declan secured the loading area.
At 12:11, they reached the server room.
Thomas was there.
Alone.
That surprised everyone.
He stood beside a terminal.
A countdown displayed.
09:02.
“Eight minutes.”
Norah said.
Thomas smiled.
“You’re good.”
Gabriel raised his gun.
“Step away.”
Thomas did not.
“If you shoot me, the deletion completes.”
Norah studied the screen.
“Dead-man switch?”
“Yes.”
“Biometric?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Thomas’s hand.
His thumb rested against a reader.
“If contact breaks, deletion accelerates.”
“Correct.”
Gabriel’s eyes moved toward Norah.
She understood the question.
Can you stop it?
Maybe.
Thomas laughed.
“Antonio believed evidence could save him.”
“He died.”
“So did Samuel.”
Thomas looked at Norah.
“And Marcus.”
Norah refused to react.
“Yet you’re still here.”
Thomas’s smile faded.
Norah approached the secondary terminal.
He allowed it.
Why?
Because he believed the system unbeatable.
That was useful.
She opened network diagnostics.
Hundreds of encrypted folders.
Names.
Payments.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Every person Thomas had purchased or blackmailed for seventeen years.
Gabriel stared at the list.
Some names belonged to his own captains.
“Half my organization.”
he whispered.
Thomas smiled.
“More.”
Declan entered behind them.
He looked at the screen.
His face hardened.
His name appeared.
Norah clicked it.
Payments.
Not to Declan.
To a company owned by his late brother.
Declan stared.
Thomas had been building false evidence against him.
Preparing to blame him for everything.
The same strategy used against Mateo.
Victor.
Marcus.
Everyone.
“Thomas doesn’t just corrupt people.”
Norah said.
“He manufactures traitors.”
Gabriel looked at Thomas.
“That’s how you killed my father.”
Thomas’s expression finally changed.
“Your father killed himself with trust.”
Norah continued scanning.
Then she found a hidden directory.
ANTONIO.
One video file.
She opened it.
Security footage from 2009.
The restaurant alley.
Antonio.
Marcus.
Samuel.
And Thomas.
Alive.
Standing across the street.
Norah stared.
Thomas had been there.
The official story was false.
Marcus did shoot Antonio.
But seconds earlier, Thomas had fired first.
Antonio was already mortally wounded.
Marcus had only fulfilled Antonio’s final request after the ambush.
Gabriel watched his father die.
Again.
This time truthfully.
Thomas saw the screen.
His calm disappeared.
“You weren’t supposed to find that.”
Norah looked at him.
“That sentence is basically my job description.”
Countdown.
04:11.
Thomas pressed harder against the biometric reader.
Norah studied the code.
Then she smiled.
“You made a mistake.”
Thomas frowned.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You built the deletion system on financial authorization architecture.”
“So?”
“So I recognize it.”
Norah typed.
The screen changed.
Thomas’s eyes widened.
She had found the redundancy layer.
The archive was mirrored.
Deletion here would not erase the backup.
Thomas released the reader.
The timer jumped to ten seconds.
Gabriel moved.
Thomas fired.
Gabriel tackled Norah sideways.
The shot missed.
Declan returned fire.
Thomas ran.
Countdown.
Three.
Two.
One.
The primary archive disappeared.
Thomas laughed from the doorway.
Then Norah turned the second monitor toward Gabriel.
MIRROR BACKUP ACTIVE.
May you like
Every file still existed.
For the first time that night, Thomas Vale looked defeated.
