“How much is there? What’s the final figure?”
Turning back to her computer, KW typed a further few lines of code out in a flash and then lifted her eyes to the small total box on her screen and her screen alone. She felt four bodies lean in behind her, each of them waiting for the number to appear. When it did there were no words. Nothing that any of them could say would bring this moment justice. Trident spanned across three continents and over fifteen countries. There were nearly a thousand different banks and buildings devoted to it. Hundreds of millions of people would be left penniless, bankrupted by the actions of five people in one room in an undisclosed location.
KW closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. Finally. After years of dedication, hard work and perseverance, it was done. Trident was no more and at last, KW could smile. But the best part of it all: they weren’t even finished yet.
Chapter 2
Slamming the door of his office behind him, Samuel leant back against the wooden frame and panted. Sweat clung to his forehead and his back, making his white shirt stick to his skin. He had never even walked up all fourteen flights of stairs before, let alone run. But today he didn’t feel like he’d had much of a choice.
Trident was compromised. Forcing himself across his office to the large floor to ceiling window that occupied one side of it, Samuel glanced down and saw hundreds of people pushing their way into the building. The glass at the front must have shattered to some extent, meaning there was less of a bottleneck entrance and more of a way into the bank. Staggering back from the window before his dizziness kicked in, Samuel knew that he wouldn’t have been the only staff member among the crowd. People were going to get beyond the lower levels eventually and then the building would really be in danger.
As with any building of its calibre and in its location, Trident was relatively well protected. Employees needed a personal code to get from each floor to the next, and several hallways were off-limits depending on your access level. Samuel had one of the higher-ranking levels of access and so he knew he was relatively safe in his office for the time being. But as with everything, it would only be a matter of hours before even that safety crumbled from beneath him. Samuel needed to do what he came there to do and then get out while he still could.
Moving with determination, he landed in his desk chair and quickly logged onto the Trident computer system. Unlike the banking app, this was thankfully still working. The first thing Samuel did was check his emails. It was routine. He’d been doing the same thing for over twenty years and it was second nature for his cursor to move over to his email system the second the screen came to life. Disappointingly though, there was nothing of importance waiting for him. Samuel wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting really: an internal company wide email telling staff not to panic and that it was all a big mistake. There was nothing of the sort.
Slumping back in his chair, Samuel tried to figure out what to do next. Theoretically he should have the answers at his fingertips based on his position, but even sitting in his office he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for. This wasn’t exactly a routine case of cyber security. The entire digital vault had been wiped clean. There was nothing left. No breadcrumbs, nothing. A part of him wondered that even if there were clues, would he be able to figure them out and decipher the hidden message.
He wasn’t a technical genius. He worked in marketing. Samuel liked pen and paper and drawing big ideas on whiteboards. In fact, if he could help it, he avoided using the computer system altogether. This was practically hopeless, but it was the best shot he had. Everyone else who was left in the building was running around just as lost in their own worlds as he was. There wasn’t an opportunity to ask for help, Samuel needed to try and figure this out himself.
With a sigh, Samuel rested his head back against his leather chair and closed his eyes. He could hear the screams and the chaos raging outside – both below his window and on the floors below. He wondered how far into the building the rioters had gotten so far. Were they hours away, or just mere minutes?
Slowing down his train of thought for a moment, Samuel did the one thing he could think to do and opened up his digital employee pay portal. It contained all the records of his payslips, remuneration packages, expenses claimed and owed; everything. At least this was still working. Samuel knew how much money he had accrued over the years working at Trident, he knew how much he should have – the only question now was where that money had gone?
He was frantically trying to figure out an answer to that question when a loud bang and bloodcurdling scream that seemed to come from above him caught his attention. It was like someone had slammed into the window above his, the noise so desperate and strange that it was powerful enough to distract Samuel from his thoughts for a minute or two. Walking cautiously over to the window he forced himself to look down, his eyes immediately noticing a small clearance that had formed in the crowd below. In the middle of it stood one woman, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared upwards, almost directly at Samuel himself.
Taking
