Chapter 292: The Breach
The sun set over the Singapore Strait, plunging the financial district into a sea of neon and artificial light. The Marina Bay Sands glowed pink and gold across the water. The Supertrees lit up down below. From the 42nd floor, the whole city looked like a circuit board. Millions of dollars moving every second and nobody knew I was sitting in the dark watching it.
I sat in the dark, empty corner office at the far end of the forty-second floor. No lights. No movement. Just me and the live feed from the server room's hidden cameras on my encrypted laptop. I had changed out of the suit and into a black tactical base layer. No armor. No weapons. I wasn't planning to engage, but I wasn't going to be caught unprepared. Singapore police don't mess around.
The office was a tomb. 5000 square feet of silence. The only sound was the faint hum of the AC and the server fans down the hall.
"Flight manifests confirm the four-man Shadow team landed at Changi Airport six hours ago," Claire reported. Her voice was low in my ear. "They've gone completely dark. No digital footprint, no rental cars, no hotel bookings. They ghosted the moment they cleared customs. Used burners to get through immigration."
"They're professionals," I murmured, keeping my eyes on the screen. "They'll hit the building between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM. The circadian rhythm is at its lowest point. Security guards get sloppy. Response times are slowest. That's when predators hunt."
Nia pinged in. "Building security is on a 2-man rotation tonight. Both of them are ex-military but they're watching Netflix in the lobby. I have audio. They're talking about football."
"Don't need it," I said. "Just watch the perimeter. Roof, stairwell, elevator shaft. That's how they'll come."
The hours dragged on. 9 PM. 10 PM. 11 PM. 12 AM. 1 AM.
The silence in the empty office was absolute. No phones ringing. No keyboards. No footsteps. Just the glow from the server room down the hall. Every 30 minutes Nia ran a diagnostic. All LEDs green. All battery packs hot. Thermal reading steady at 42 degrees. The illusion was holding.
I thought about Li. About the Empress. About what happens if this fails.
At 1:45 AM, Claire's voice cut in. Sharp. "Thermal contact. Roof. Four signatures. They're on the helipad. No lights. No comms."
I sat up. "Confirm."
"Confirmed," Nia said. "No elevator use. No lobby entry. They're coming down the elevator shaft. They cut power to the cameras on the roof 30 seconds ago."
Of course they were. Imperial Shadows don't use front doors. They use the bones of the building.
At exactly 3:15 AM, the digital perimeter alarm on my laptop flashed red. Silent. Just a vibration in my earpiece.
"We have a breach," Nia said, her voice tight. "They didn't come through the lobby. They bypassed the building's external security grid and scaled the elevator shaft. They're prying open the doors on your floor right now. East elevator bank. 20 seconds."
I switched to the secondary camera feed in the main corridor. Black and white. Night vision.
Four figures dressed in pitch-black tactical gear slipped out of the elevator shaft. They moved with terrifying, synchronized precision. No talking. No hand signals. They just knew. Years of training.
They didn't use flashlights. They navigated the pitch-black office using quad-lens night vision goggles. The green glow reflected faintly off the glass partitions. They looked like ghosts.
They moved down the corridor, ignoring the empty glass offices. They didn't even glance at them. They knew exactly where they were going. They weren't here to case the place. They weren't here to steal office supplies. They were here for one thing. The data. Proof that Julian Croft was real.
They reached the heavy steel door of the server room. Paused. One of them swept the hallway with a handheld scanner. Looking for traps. Looking for motion sensors. Looking for me.
The lead Shadow pulled a specialized decryption device from his vest. It looked like a thick tablet with cables. Military issue. He plugged it into the biometric scanner.
It took him less than twenty seconds to bypass the lock. The device cycled through codes, spoofed the keycard, and forced the magnetic seal. The heavy door hissed open. Cold air rolled out into the hallway. The temperature differential was visible on their NVGs.
"They're in," I whispered.
The four Shadows stepped into the server room, their weapons raised, sweeping the corners in practiced arcs. The room was empty except for the racks. No people. No guards. No receptionist.
They immediately holstered their weapons. This wasn't a kill mission. This was extraction. Violence draws attention.
They moved to the racks.
They worked with practiced efficiency. Two Shadows maintained a defensive perimeter at the door, facing out into the hallway. Eyes on the exits. Ears listening. The other two dropped to their knees in front of the primary rack and plugged heavy-duty data extraction cables into the primary server ports.
The cables were thick, military grade. They bypassed the network interface and went straight to the drives. Direct dump.
"They're slicing the network," Nia confirmed, watching the data transfer rates spike on her end. "They're pulling the fabricated portfolios. 12 terabytes. It's fast. 800 megabytes per second."
I watched the progress bar on my screen. 15%. 30%.
I needed them to get enough data to satisfy the Empress. If they left with nothing, she'd know it was a trap. If they stayed too long, they'd realize the servers were a closed loop and start searching the floor. Start opening doors.
45%. 60%.
One of the Shadows at the door tilted his head. He heard something. Probably the hum of the building. Probably nothing. But his posture shifted. They were trained to be paranoid. To assume everything was a threat.
75%. 85%.
The two Shadows at the rack were still kneeling. Still dumping data.
One of them glanced at the progress bar on the screen.
90%.
"Data transfer at ninety percent," Nia reported. "They have the core files.
The fake trading algorithms. The shell company records. Everything we want them to have."
The lead Shadow gave a single nod. Almost done.
My finger hovered over the execution key on my laptop.
"Now," I whispered.
I pressed the key.
