Chapter 13: The Interception
Miller returned to the mansion through the rear service entrance thirty minutes later, his face grim as he walked up to the study where Arthur awaited him behind the mahogany desk. The digital monitors had returned to their normal green status, but the tension in the room was palpable.
“Well?” Arthur asked, not looking up from his screen.
“It was a reconnaissance drone fitted with a directional signal booster,” Miller reported, placing a small, charred electronic component on the desk. “They were trying to ping our internal network, looking for an open port to inject a trace virus. We intercepted it and wiped the local memory before it could relay anything.”
Arthur picked up the charred component, turning it over in his fingers. “Sterling is getting desperate. He knows the legal injunctions failed, so now he’s trying cyber infiltration.”
“Shall we sweep the surrounding county roads for their mobile command unit?” Miller asked.
“No,” Arthur replied, setting the piece down. “Let them look. If they stay on public land, our legal team will tie them up in court for months. But if they cross the property line—if they set foot on private estate grounds—you know what to do.”
“Absolute containment,” Miller said with a nod before turning to leave the study.
As the door clicked shut, Arthur leaned back in his leather chair, his dark eyes reflecting the glow of the monitors. The physical perimeter was secure, but the psychological walls within the house were beginning to show microscopic fractures. Elena’s compliance at the dinner table had been too smooth, too rehearsed. She was playing a long game, waiting for an opportunity when his attention was divided.
Arthur stood up and walked out of the study, deciding to check the interior feeds. He pulled up the hallway camera covering the guest wing. To his surprise, the feed was flickering intermittently. A frown touched his lips. The internal network shouldn't be experiencing interference unless someone was manually tampering with the local relay box located in the service corridor behind the guest rooms.
He moved quickly, his footsteps silent against the plush hallway carpet as he made his way toward the east wing. The house was dead quiet, the grandfather clock ticking softly in the distance. As he rounded the corner, he saw the service door to the relay junction ajar, a sliver of yellow light spilling onto the floorboards.
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Pushing the door open with a firm shove, Arthur stepped inside the narrow utility room. Elena stood by the wall-mounted control panel, a small wire jumper in her hand, having just bypassed the security feed for the eastern corridor. She spun around at the sound of his approach, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes widening with sudden, stark terror as she realized she had been caught red-handed. The fragile truce had officially shattered.
***
