Chapter 21 - The Signal's Echo
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The black suburban pulled up to the curb of the city park less than ten minutes after I dropped the burner phone into the recycling bin. Agent Elena step out of the vehicle, her tailored trench coat flapping in the cool breeze, her expression etched with fierce determination.
"Did you trace it?" Elena asked, walking straight toward me as Chloe sat happily on the grass nearby, arranging colorful flower petals into a crown.
"It pinged off an offshore ghost server in Zurich," I replied, holding up my wrist to display the real-time telemetry captured by my father's watch system. "It was routed through three secondary encrypted nodes before hitting my burner. Whoever made that call wasn't an amateur, Elena. They knew my phone's frequency."
Elena took a deep breath, scanning the tree line of the park with trained, vigilant eyes.
"Arthur Vance is rotting in a supermax prison, Audrey," she said softly. "His core lieutenants are behind bars. But a empire that size doesn't just disappear overnight. There are always remnant cells—financiers, corrupt officials, silent partners who didn't get caught in the first dragnet."
"They warned me that my father didn't destroy every server," I said, my gaze dropping to my daughter's joyful smile. "And they're watching me. They knew I was here with Chloe."
Elena's jaw tightened. She reached into her coat and pulled out a sleek, encrypted sat-phone, handing it to me.
"Use this from now on," Elena instructed. "I'm doubling the perimeter security around your house starting tonight. My team traced a secondary signal coming from a server hub in the financial district two miles from here. We're moving in on it within the hour."
I looked down at the sat-phone in my palm. The nightmare I thought was finally behind us was merely shifting shapes.
"I'm coming with you," I said firmly.
May you like
Elena frowned. "Audrey, no. Your job is to stay safe with Chloe."
"I have the master encryption key my father left me," I reminded her, meeting her gaze without flinching. "Your tech guys will take hours to breach that server. I can unlock it in thirty seconds. If Arthur Vance's ghost is still breathing, I want to be the one who turns off its life support."
