Chapter 10
The blue glow of the computer monitor illuminated the silent devastation of the study. Director Sterling stared at the ultimatum flashing on the screen, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line. He reached out, tapping a sequence of keys to trace the IP address of the remote transmission, but the terminal clicked softly before displaying a flat, dead error screen: CONNECTION TERMINATED.
“They’re routing their signal through a burner satellite,” Sterling muttered, frustration edging into his gravelly voice. “Amateur moves, but effective enough to buy them twenty minutes.”
Clara stood beside the desk, her arms crossed over her crisp white button-down shirt. The cut near her ear had stopped bleeding, leaving a thin, dark scab that starkly contrasted with her pale skin. Despite the physical exhaustion weighing down her limbs, her mind was operating with terrifying clarity.
“They aren’t running away to hide, Director,” Clara said, her voice chillingly calm. “They’re trying to force a trade.”
Sterling looked over at her, his piercing gray eyes appraising her with newfound respect.
“A trade?” Sterling asked, raising an eyebrow. “They have nothing left of value except the ledger. And once I deploy the state police to block the harbor routes, they won’t have anywhere to run.”
“You don’t understand Marcus and Hayes,” Clara replied, shaking her head slowly. “They aren’t just Julian’s corporate lackeys. They are the ones who engineered the offshore shell companies. If that physical ledger hits federal hands, they spend the rest of their lives in a supermax prison. Desperate men do unpredictable things.”
Sterling pulled out his encrypted mobile device, tapping out a rapid text message to his tactical commander.
“We deploy a two-pronged approach,” Sterling decided, sliding the device back into his trench coat. “State police will seal off every exit route leading to the old municipal shipyard, while my tactical unit moves in quietly from the water side. We don’t give them room to negotiate.”
Clara turned away from the desk, walking slowly toward the tall bay windows that overlooked the sprawling, fog-drenched lawns of the Elm Terrace estate. Outside, the headlights of several federal cruisers cut erratic swaths through the thick, rolling mist.
“No,” Clara said quietly, her reflection staring back at her from the cold glass. “If you ambush them blindly, they’ll dump the ledger into the bay just out of spite. My father spent his entire life building that legacy. I need that ledger intact.”
Sterling stepped up beside her, his expression grim. “What are you proposing, Clara?”
Clara turned her head to meet the director’s gaze, her eyes burning with an intense, unyielding fire.
May you like
“I go to the shipyard,” Clara said evenly. “Alone.”
Before Sterling could even begin to object, the landline phone on the mahogany desk suddenly began to ring, piercing the heavy silence of the ruined study with a shrill, demanding shriek.
