“Rack four. Bay three. Drive D,” Kinsley said, pointing to a server near the back wall.
Harper didn’t hesitate. She dropped her wrench and moved to the rack. 88%. She grabbed the release latch on the hard drive bay. It was locked in place with a heavy-duty physical security mechanism. She needed the key to unlock the chassis.
CRASH.
The door to the server room didn’t just open. It was kicked off its heavy hinges. The wood splintered, sending shards flying across the room.
Two men in dark tactical suits burst in.
They weren’t the local cops. They were thick-necked, dead-eyed mercenaries. One was a towering man with a shaved head holding a high-voltage stun baton that crackled with blue electricity. The other was a leaner, faster man holding a suppressed Glock 19, trained directly at Harper’s chest.
“Step away from the server,” the gunman barked, his voice devoid of emotion.
Kinsley screamed, clapping her hands over her ears, and dropped to the floor, curling into a ball under the desk.
Harper didn’t freeze. She didn’t put her hands up. Her brain hyper-processed the environment.
Threat 1: Firearm. Distance: 12 feet. Center mass aim. Threat 2: Melee (Stun baton). Distance: 10 feet. Hostage: Kinsley (Low, behind cover). Objective: Hard Drive (Locked).
Solution: Violence of action.
“Don’t shoot!” Harper yelled, raising her hands to her shoulders, feigning absolute, helpless panic. Her voice trembled perfectly. “Please! I’m just a janitor! The nurse made me come in here!”
The gunman hesitated for a microsecond, confused by the dirty jumpsuit and the submissive posture. He glanced at Kinsley under the desk.
That single second of hesitation was all Harper needed.
Her right hand dropped to the desk. She grabbed the heavy iron wrench she had set down. In one fluid, explosive motion, she whipped her arm forward.
She didn’t throw it at his chest. She threw it at his face.
The wrench spun through the air like a deadly propeller and struck the gunman squarely across the bridge of his nose.
The sickening CRACK of bone echoed over the hum of the servers.
The gunman howled, his head snapping back. His finger jerked the trigger, sending a suppressed round phut into the ceiling tiles, raining plaster down onto the carpet. The Glock slipped from his hand as he fell backward, clutching his ruined face.
“Bitch!” the second man roared.
He lunged forward with the stun baton, swinging it in a wide, lethal arc aimed at Harper’s ribcage. Fifty thousand volts crackled on the tip.
Harper ducked under the swing. She felt the static electricity raise the hairs on her neck.
She stepped inside his guard—just as she had with Silas—but this man was a professional. He absorbed her shoulder check, braced his feet, and tried to drive his knee into her stomach.
Harper pivoted, deflecting the knee with her forearm. Pain shot up her arm, but she ignored it. She trapped the arm holding the baton, twisting the wrist until the weapon dropped to the floor.
The mercenary was strong—easily two hundred pounds of muscle. He grabbed Harper by the throat, driving her backward into the server racks. The metal chassis dug into her spine.
“I’m gonna break your neck,” the man growled, squeezing her windpipe, cutting off her air.
Harper’s vision started to blur. Black spots danced in her eyes. But panic was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
She reached up, dug her thumbs into the pressure points under his jaw, but he ignored the pain.
So, she used physics.
Harper dropped her weight, collapsing to the floor and pulling him down with her. As they fell, she wrapped her legs around his neck in a perfect triangle choke. She locked her ankles together and squeezed. Her thighs, conditioned by years of carrying eighty-pound rucksacks up Afghan mountains, were like steel cables.
The man thrashed. He clawed at her legs, trying to gouge her eyes, but Harper buried her face into his chest, maintaining the lock.
Three seconds. Four seconds. Five seconds.
The mercenary’s face turned bright red, then purple. The carotid arteries were completely cut off.
At the eight-second mark, his eyes rolled back into his head. His massive body went completely limp.
Harper released the hold, rolling off him instantly, gasping for air. Her throat burned.
She scrambled across the floor, grabbed the Glock 19 the first man had dropped, and cleared the chamber with a practiced clack.
She aimed it at the doorway, her chest heaving. The first man was still on the floor, groaning in a pool of blood, entirely out of the fight.
Harper didn’t shoot them. She kicked their weapons under the deepest server rack. She wasn’t an assassin. She was a soldier.
She turned back to the monitor.
PURGE: 96% COMPLETE.
“It’s too late!” Kinsley cried from under the desk, staring at the screen. “It’s locking the final sector!”
“No,” Harper gritted her teeth.
She ran to the server rack. The hard drive was still locked. She didn’t have the key, and the digital lock was dead.
She grabbed the plastic handle of the hard drive bay with both hands. She braced her boot against the metal frame of the server.
“Harper, look out!” Kinsley screamed.
Harper spun around, raising the Glock.
