Wipeout: Wipeout Book 1 Read online

  Logging off from Hauser’s computer, Samuel pushed himself to his feet and exited the room, glancing back momentarily at the window as he left. He wondered when he would next be back in the building, whether people would ask questions about the man’s passing or whether they would simply draw a line under it and try to forget that this whole fiasco ever happened.

  For now at least, Samuel felt better about it and decided the best thing for him was to get out of the building and head back home – as his mother would say – to wait for everything to blow over. He wondered about going to see his parents on Long Island, they were both close to their seventies now and while they claimed independence, he felt a lot more responsible for them than they claimed to be for him these days.

  With thoughts of his parents’ wellbeing on his mind, Samuel wasn’t concentrating properly as he pulled open the door from the finance department to the stairwell and stepped out. Almost immediately there was a rough fist grabbing his shirt and an angry voice in his ear. The fact that disgruntled civilians still roamed the Trident building had completely slipped Samuel’s mind until it was much too late.

  “What’re you doing in there? Who are ya?”

  “What the – get off me!” Samuel quickly snapped back to his right mind, focusing on the man who had grabbed him and thrown his body back against the door as it swung shut behind him. He opened his mouth to continue arguing before he saw the crowbar in the man’s other hand and the menacing, fearless look in the man’s eyes.

  “Woah, pal. Back off. I work here.”

  Before he’d even finished his sentence, Samuel regretted what he was saying. Admitting he was an employee of Trident had to be one of the worst things he could do. It gave this guy – and everyone else – a focal point for their anger, a focal point that he didn’t want to be.

  “Oh, you work here,” the man shoved Samuel back a bit further, despite his back already being up against the closed door. “Care to tell us what’s going on then? Where is my money? What’ve you done with it?”

  “I haven’t – I don’t know,” Samuel tried to explain. “I’m not in –”

  “Hey Matt, what’s going on up there?”

  “I’ve got one of them!” The man who held Samuel by the front of his shirt called down the stairs to the echoing voice. “Come up and help me.”

  Now Samuel really knew he was in trouble. The man in front of him – Matt – was already a much bulkier looking man than he was, and he could tell by the hold he had on his shirt that there were strong muscles underneath his hoodie. He looked nothing like the sort of company that Samuel chose to keep in his personal life and desperately didn’t want to keep now. As Matt’s friend, a man with a shaven head and tattoos reaching up onto his neck from underneath his t-shirt jogged up the stairs to join them, that thought became even more confirmed in Samuel’s mind.

  “He came out of here,” Matt explained to his friend, his grip on Samuel loosening slightly as he turned to talk, but not enough that he could wriggle free. “He works for Trident.”

  “You’re one of them?” The tattooed man growled, looking even more threatening than Matt did. “What’ve you done with our money?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” Samuel argued back, trying to keep his voice level and calm. His parents had taught him that his words were the best tool he could ever bring to an argument; that there was no situation he couldn’t talk himself out of so long as he chose the right words to say. “I work in marketing. I was in there trying to find answers just like you. I don’t know anything more than the ransomware line they’ve told everyone.”

  “Ransomware?” Matt furrowed his brow and looked to his friend with a confused expression on his face. “What’s that?”

  “Trident released a statement,” Samuel explained. “Haven’t you seen it?” From the bewildered expressions both men shared, it was obvious neither of them had a clue what he was talking about. “Have you got a cell phone?” He asked, “I can show you – but mine is dead.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Matt answered, absentmindedly letting go of the hold he had on Samuel to reach into his pocket and hand him his cell. Samuel didn’t react, though he eyed the gap between the two men and the stairs, seeing if he had enough room to make a break for it. He needed to bide his time. Matt still gripped a crowbar in his other hand and Samuel didn’t want to have to take that on. “Here.”

  Taking the phone from Matt, Samuel quickly navigated to the first news site he could find, unsurprised to see a distinct lack of useful apps on the home screen. After a few taps, he had the statement Trident had issued up on the screen, handing the phone back to Matt so he and his friend could both read it. He held his breath, watching the two men’s eyes move from side to side as they read the words on the screen, then, when Samuel was confident they were only about half way through, he lurched forward, pushing between the pair of them and barrelling down the stairs.

  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 c
yber 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 had joined their conversation, unsurprised to see it was Belinda Daniels, an incredibly stuck-up woman from the coding department who had been zero help since the systems all went down nearly an hour ago. When the code red had been issued, everyone in the building was told to either evacuate or remain behind if they believed they could aid the scenario. As a result, the twenty or so people who had gathered on the nineteenth floor had varying positions within the company, but all shared a passion for it and wanted to do right by the place they worked. All of them except Belinda Daniels that was. Much like Claire Manning herself, it seemed like a piece of bad luck that the woman had been left behind to ride out the disaster with the rest of them.

  “Give it a rest, Belinda,” Austin sighed, turning to walk away from the woman. “What’s the point in trying to make this more difficult than it is.”

  “What’s the point in not?” She retorted with a laugh before flopping down in one of the leather desk chairs and resting her now stiletto-less feet on a desk. Even Claire Manning hadn’t been able to talk her down. Belinda had fully given in to the decision that Trident was ruined and that her future had gone down with it. As a result, she saw no point in trying to do anything about it and was an irritating dead weight that the rest of them were forced to carry along with them.

  Doing his best to ignore the woman, Austin returned to the desk space he had made his own and picked up the phone again. He normally worked in human resources on the floor below, managing relationships within the company and dealing with any internal complaints or affairs. He didn’t know the first thing about cyber security or coding or finance – aside from the bare minimum required to get a job for a banking corporation – so in truth a lot of what was happening with the real disaster was going over his head. But Austin did recognize that there were just over twenty people trapped at the top of the building and unless something happened, they weren’t likely to get out any time soon. He had a partner and a young child to get back to and if there was anything he could do to make the journey to them even slightly quicker, he was willing to do it. So, picking up the phone again, Austin dialed the number of yet another private security company in the city. The first few levels of the building needed to be cleared and someone would surely take on the job eventually.

  ***

  Claire Manning racked her brain over what to do. Clearing the building and finding a way out was so far down the bottom of her priorities list, she didn’t even know it was a concern out on the floor. The future of the bank and its reputation was much more pressing to her. But no matter whom she spoke to or which view she heard on the situation, it was never good. Trident didn’t appear to have a hope in hell when it came to getting the money back. According to her closest advisers, it was in the bank’s best interests to retract the ransomware statement as soon as possible and tell the public the truth.

  “If we issue a second statement now,” Graham offered, “we can simply say the first statement was a mistake. That we hadn’t gathered all the data properly before sharing the information. Perhaps if we hold our hands up people will go a bit easier on us.”

  “No,” Claire shut his suggestion down immediately. “We’re not doing that. We can’t admit to the mistake. We can’t be seen to accept any more blame in this than we already have.”

  “Blame?” Graham raised his eyebrows and dared to challenge the CEO. He was also on the Board of Directors. He had worked for Trident his entire life, as had his father before him, and he knew that their reputation was already ruined. The best thing they could do now was just try to save a little face. “This has gone well past the point of blame now, Claire. We’re ruined. There’s no coming back from this. Even if we manage to get the money back by some miracle, no one will ever bank with Trident again. This company is done for and everyone in this room knows it.”

  “It’s gone beyond us,” Jasper added, fresh off the back of the conference with the wider security team and feeling determined to make a difference in the disaster. “The money isn’t going to be tracked down any time soon, if ever. The country is bust. We have a duty of care to its people now – the people who have trusted us for however long. We need to tell them the truth.”

  Murmurs of agreement rippled around the room and in that moment, Claire Manning knew she was beaten. The Trident Banking Corporation had been a legacy of her family for generations. Her three-time great grandfather founded the company from his college dorm, offering at the time a new method of banking that the world desperately needed. They’d been through hard times as a company before, but somehow always managed to pull through. Now she couldn’t help but see herself as a failure. She was the first female CEO of the company and apparently the last. What would her father say? Would he understand, or would he once again view his daughter as nothing but a disappointment?

  “Very well,” she admitted, surprising most of her colleagues in the room with her change of heart. “We’ll tell the truth. Anyone got any bright ideas how to do it exactly?”

  Once again, the room fell silent. The conversation was following a pattern that Claire had seen many times before in business. Everyone had an idea and everyone wanted to be the one whose idea was chosen, but when it came to carrying out the difficult parts of that idea, no one wanted that role to sit with them. As the CEO and Chair of the Board of Directors, that responsibility more often than not sat with Claire and today, she was just not in the mood.

  “Jasper,” Claire Manning continued when it became apparent no one else was going to offer up their services. “You’re closest to this. You know the technical side of things. Start drafting out an official statement of – what do we want to call it? Apology? Regret? Whatever,” Claire shook her head, “just draft a statement telling the truth about what’s happened. Do we have anyone from the marketing department up here with us?”

  Jaspe
r, Graham and the few others in the room shook their heads. “Don’t think so,” Graham replied, “no one has heard from Samuel.”

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “Straight to voicemail.”

  “Hmm,” Claire didn’t really know what to say. She wondered how many people were already dead across the city as a result of this disaster and how many more would join them in the coming days. She hadn’t spent more than a few seconds thinking about it, but she knew everyone’s lives would change dramatically now, and almost certainly not for the better. If a few people wanted to avoid that and end things early, who was she to judge?

  “Keep trying,” she suggested half-heartedly. “Buzz me when you’ve got a first draft. I’ll be in my office.”

  Without waiting for confirmation that anyone was going to do as she’d asked, Claire pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. She had too much on her mind. She needed some time away, a bit of space to think and clear her head. Walking out of the meeting room and toward the stairwell at the back of the large, open plan room – the only way up to the twentieth floor due to a design signed off by her great grandfather – Claire fled the chaos of her dissolving company and made her retreat. Alone at last in her office, she closed her eyes and tried to wrap her head around what had just happened.

  Trident was done for. Claire knew there was a bigger picture and that the whole of the United States was going to suffer as a result of this, but to her the most important thing was her company. She had fought tooth and nail to claim her position as CEO. Her father had wanted to give the position to her younger brother when he retired, despite Claire being top of her class in business school and proving herself to be better suited to both finance and business than her brother was.