Chapter 50 - The Ultimatum
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The freezing wind howled through the exposed steel rebar of the 40th floor, carrying with it the terrifying reality of my situation. Thorne wasn't just a step ahead; he had completely rewritten the rules of the game while I was still setting the board.
"You kill my family, you get absolutely nothing," I said, my voice dropping to a gravelly, desperate low. "You know I'd never give it up if they were dead."
"I am fully aware," Thorne agreed, tapping his suppressed pistol rhythmically against the plastic table. "Which is precisely why I haven't ordered them killed yet. I am a businessman, David. I prefer transactions that benefit both parties. I get my leverage back, and you get to watch your son grow up. It’s a very simple, binary choice."
I looked at the live video feed on the smartphone. The two men in the hallway were standing incredibly still, their hands resting inside their jackets. Amy was just on the other side of that thin wooden door, completely oblivious to the fact that death was waiting to knock.
"If I give you the password," I stalled, my mind racing through thousands of terrifying calculations, "how do I know you won't just kill us all anyway to tie up the loose ends?"
"You don't," Thorne smiled smoothly. "But it is the only option you have that currently holds a greater than zero percent chance of survival. The clock is ticking, David. The suspense is terribly boring."
I slowly reached into my heavy jacket pocket. Thorne's grip on his weapon instantly tightened, his eyes narrowing with lethal focus.
"Keep your hands exactly where I can see them," Thorne warned sharply.
I slowly pulled out my smartphone and placed it gently on the table, right next to his live video feed.
"I am a businessman too, Marcus," I said, leaning back in my folding chair. "And I don't engage in transactions without a guarantee."
Thorne looked at my phone, mildly amused. "And what exactly is your guarantee?"
"I didn't just encrypt the Zurich Ledger," I explained, staring directly into his cold, gray eyes. "I weaponized it. I linked the decryption key to an automated, decentralized dark-web server."
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Thorne’s amused expression faltered slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"I set up a dead man's switch," I stated clearly. "If I don't manually input a randomized, alphanumeric code into this specific server every twelve hours, the system automatically decrypts the entire ledger. And then, it indiscriminately emails the unredacted files, the videos, and the banking logs to the top fifty investigative journalists on the planet."
