Chapter 9 - The Burning Tower
Smoke entered the office before the countdown reached three minutes.
Victor had disabled the sprinklers and locked every emergency stairwell.
Gideon tore open the wall panel beside the elevators, but the controls had been destroyed remotely.
“Roof,” he said. “There are maintenance stairs behind the executive washroom.”
We ran.
Ms. Voss could barely stand. My mother put one arm around her waist while my father leaned on Gideon.
Caleb remained handcuffed near Nathaniel’s desk.
“Do not leave me!” he shouted.
Gideon looked back.
Caleb had betrayed Nathaniel, helped imprison my father, and attempted to kill us.
Still, Gideon returned and pulled him upright.
“We are not Victor,” he said.
The maintenance stairs were narrow and filled with smoke.
Employees poured upward from lower floors, coughing and crying.
A pregnant woman had collapsed on the sixty-fifth-floor landing.
My mother handed me to Gideon and helped lift her.
Nathaniel’s security men, office workers, cleaners, assistants, and board members climbed together.
No one cared who was rich.
No one cared who had mocked whom in the lobby.
Fire made everyone equal.
We reached the roof with less than a minute remaining.
Cold wind tore through the smoke.
The helipad was empty.
Victor’s helicopter rose from a neighboring building.
He had never been inside the tower.
His image in the boardroom had been prerecorded.
“He planned to kill everyone,” my father said.
The building shook beneath us.
Windows exploded across the upper floors.
Flames rushed from the ventilation towers.
Gideon searched the skyline.
A second helicopter approached from the west.
Federal markings covered its side.
For one hopeful moment, the employees cheered.
Then gunmen leaned from the open doors.
“They’re Victor’s,” Nathaniel’s former security chief shouted.
Bullets struck the rooftop.
Everyone scattered.
Gideon fired back.
Ms. Voss pulled me behind an air-conditioning unit.
A bullet hit her shoulder again.
She collapsed.
“Stay down,” she told me.
The helicopter circled.
One gunman aimed toward the pregnant woman.
I saw something beside the helipad controls—a red emergency flare launcher.
I crawled toward it.
“Ruby!” my mother screamed.
I grabbed the launcher with both hands.
It was heavier than I expected.
The helicopter turned directly toward us.
I pulled the trigger.
The flare shot upward and struck the front windshield.
Red fire exploded across the glass.
The pilot lost control.
The helicopter spun away from the roof and crashed into an empty construction site across the avenue.
Everyone stared at me.
“I was aiming for the door,” I admitted.
A new sound rose above the wind.
Three military helicopters approached the tower.
Federal agents fired on Victor’s remaining aircraft.
Rescue crews lowered cables onto the roof.
The evidence my father released had reached honest officials before Victor could silence them.
One by one, people were lifted from the burning building.
Caleb was taken into custody.
Ms. Voss was carried away on a stretcher.
My father, mother, and I entered the final rescue helicopter with Gideon.
As we rose above the roof, Graves Tower burned beneath us.
The building that had represented Nathaniel’s power was being destroyed before the entire city.
At the federal command center, an attorney met us.
“Nathaniel Graves has been attacked in detention,” she said.
My stomach dropped.
“Is he alive?” I asked.
“He is in surgery.”
Victor had placed prisoners and guards on his payroll.
Nathaniel had been stabbed three times shortly after the files became public.
My mother held me as I cried.
My father spoke privately with federal investigators for six hours.
By morning, arrest warrants had been issued for Victor Hale, thirty-two corporate executives, eleven judges, and two senators.
But Victor had disappeared.
Investigators believed he was attempting to leave the country.
We went to the hospital where Nathaniel was being treated under armed guard.
A nurse allowed me to stand outside his room.
Through the glass, I saw machines, tubes, and white bandages.
Nathaniel looked smaller without his black suit and armed men.
I pressed my hand against the window.
His eyes opened.
He saw me.
His fingers moved weakly against the blanket.
The nurse let me enter.
“You found the key,” he whispered.
“Mom kept it.”
“Of course she did.”
“The tower burned.”
“Buildings can be rebuilt.”
“Victor escaped.”
Nathaniel looked toward the door where my parents waited.
“He will come for you again.”
“Why?”
“Because you are the one thing he cannot control.”
I sat beside the bed.
“Are you my uncle?”
His expression softened.
“Yes.”
I had never had an uncle before.
“Then you have to get better.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
Then the heart monitor changed.
Doctors rushed into the room.
A nurse carried me outside.
My mother wrapped her arms around me.
The medical team worked behind the glass.
One doctor called for more blood.
Another began pressing against Nathaniel’s chest.
May you like
The monitor produced one long, unbroken sound.
My uncle’s heart had stopped.
