He didn’t need to look back to know they had given chase, the sound of four heavy boots on the stairwell behind him was enough to keep pushing Samuel forward. His aim was only the fourteenth floor. Make it there, key in his code and get inside. On the fourteenth floor he would be safe. He doubted whether he could make it any further, but the fourteenth floor was doable. Achievable.
With a burst of speed, Samuel reached the entrance to the marketing department and frantically keyed in his code, Matt and his friend hot on his heels. He slammed the door with more force than he’d ever done before, the clanging of metal ringing out in his ears. But it was enough. Matt and his friend yelled out in frustration from the stairwell, Samuel safely locked away behind the heavy door. He was away from the pair of them at least, but Samuel was still stuck inside the Trident building with an enraged mob outside and more and more people making their way up the levels. Time was ticking and he needed to find a way out before it was too late.
Chapter 6
“Someone please give me some good news. Have we found the hackers yet? How is the public reacting to the ransomware statement? Is there any update on getting all these rioters out of our building so we can leave? Come on people, I need answers!”
Unbeknownst to everyone below, the nineteenth floor of the Trident building was still in full operation. When the discovery had first been made that their systems had been wiped clean, those in charge of Trident had been granted a few precious minutes to act before the news became widespread and public. CEO and majority shareholder Claire Manning had – by a sheer stroke of luck – been at the Wall Street office at the time, leaving her in the driver’s seat for the disaster.
She should have been on the red eye earlier that morning to Frankfurt, but due to a problem with the plumbing in her apartment, she’d been forced to delay for a couple of days. Now not only was there a terrible leak in her bathroom, but she was in serious hot water in the office as well. Things were not going well at all.
“The statement has been broadcast across most major news channels Ms Manning,” one of the twenty or so staff members who had been pulled up to the nineteenth floor before things went completely haywire reported to her. “But we’ve no real view on the reaction to it. Based on things outside though, I’d say not great. People are still flooding into the building and we’ve not had any luck recruiting more security from within the city. I’m afraid the vast majority of people have given up due to thinking their wages won’t be paid at the end of the month.”
Claire Manning rolled her eyes and sighed. “There must be someone we can call in. Tell them we’ll pay triple the usual fee. We can’t be held prisoner like this waiting for the government to step in. I don’t care what it takes, get some help over here.”
“Err, Ms Manning?”
“What?”
“Jasper and Olivier have just finished up with the cyber team – do you want to speak to them?”
“Absolutely!” Claire Manning clapped her hands together, finally they were getting somewhere. She would’ve liked to have been in the conference with the cyber team herself, but things were too chaotic on the shop floor for her to be out of sight for longer than a couple of minutes. Jasper and Olivier were two of her most trusted cyber security force; they were digging into how the hacking attack had taken place and trying to find the culprits so the money could be returned. They were two of the very few people – a list which naturally included Claire Manning and her closest advisors on the board – that knew the truth about the hack and the fact that it was not a ransomware attack as they were telling the masses. The truth was the money was gone. And unless they could track down whoever it was that had stolen it, Trident was going to collapse and the entire country alongside it.
“They’re still in the Espirito Suite,” the young man offered. “Do you want me to take you?”
Claire Manning huffed again, side stepping the man and striding off in the direction of the Espirito Suite. “I know my way around!” She called back over her shoulder, drawing the attention of everyone on the nineteenth floor. “Back to work, people. This company isn’t ruined yet!”
“Wow,” Austin Taylor – the Trident employee who had informed Claire Manning about Jasper and Olivier being free to talk – let out a large breath of air. “Anyone else kind of wishing that she hadn’t been here when this all went down?”
A couple of the other staff members laughed awkwardly, though only one of them dared to reply, the others too afraid that Ms Manning might overhear and take out her frustration on them next. “What are we going to do?” Sean shook his head, glancing in the direction that Claire Manning had just gone. “Surely she can’t think there’s a way to fix all of this? Everyone is saying the money is lost forever. I don’t even know why we’re all still here. There doesn’t seem to be a way out of this.”
“Probably because there’s nowhere else for us to go,” Austin shrugged. “We can’t get out of the building with God knows how many people waiting downstairs. Might as well try and dig up some dirt on what’s behind all of this while we’re trapped here.”
“Yeah, I guess. Or we just kick back and wait it out. It’s not like she can fire us now.”
Austin shot a glare at the woman who
