Chapter 4 - THE NEVADA TRAIL
Thirty-six hours later, my private jet touched down on a dusty airstrip thirty miles outside of Groom Lake, Nevada.
The air was hot and dry, smelling faintly of sagebrush and aviation fuel. I stepped off the plane accompanied by Marcus Vance, my head of corporate security—a former Navy SEAL who had been with Mercer Aerospace for over a decade.
“FBI confirmed Vanessa’s primary contact landed at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas last night,” Marcus said, handing me a satellite imagery report as we climbed into an armored Ford Raptor. “His name is Viktor Kross. Ex-SVR, currently working as a high-tier asset broker for foreign defense contractors.”
“Did he get the velvet box?” I asked, staring out at the endless desert expanse.
“We don't think so,” Marcus replied. “When the federal agents searched Vanessa’s vehicle and her Manhattan apartment, they didn't find the journal or the security passcodes. That means she hid them before you came home—or she passed them to a courier during her three-day window.”
My mind raced. Vanessa was smart, methodical, and paranoid. She wouldn't hand over her ultimate bargaining chip until she had her full payment in hand. She was holding the passcodes in reserve as leverage against her own buyers.
We arrived at Mercer Facility Seven—a subterranean testing center built two hundred feet underground beneath a bleak desert ridge. This was where our most sensitive project, codenamed Aegis, was undergoing stress testing.
Aegis was an autonomous defense grid capable of disabling rogue drone swarms using high-frequency electromagnetic pulses. If the algorithms fell into foreign hands, global military air defense would be rendered obsolete overnight.
Inside the facility’s control center, lead engineer Dr. Aris Thorne (no relation to Vanessa) met us with a grim expression.
“Mr. Mercer,” Dr. Thorne said, leading us toward the primary mainframe terminal. “We detected an unauthorized external handshake on our secondary server five hours ago.”
“From where?”
“An IP address routed through a commercial hotel in downtown Las Vegas,” Thorne said, pulling up a line of green code on his monitor. “Someone used your father’s master override protocol to initiate a remote diagnostic check.”
I slammed my fist onto the console desk. “She gave them the passcodes.”
“Not all of them,” Thorne corrected quickly. “The override stalled at stage three because it required a physical biometrics scan—your fingerprint or your voiceprint. But they now have forty percent of our system architecture.”
Marcus leaned over the console. “If Kross realizes he can’t complete the download without Elijah, what’s his next move?”
Before Thorne could answer, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a blocked number.
I signaled Marcus to trace the call, then pressed answer and put it on speaker.
“Elijah,” a smooth, cultured voice spoke through the speaker. Russian accent, low and deliberate.
“Kross,” I said cold.
“I must congratulate you,” Kross said with a dry chuckle. “Your housekeeper showed remarkable resilience, and your prompt return from London was... inconvenient. Poor Vanessa is currently sitting in a federal holding cell, looking at twenty years for treason.”
“She’s lucky if she only gets twenty,” I snapped. “What do you want, Kross?”
“I want what your father built,” Kross replied smoothly. “Vanessa was greedy. She wanted millions. I am a pragmatic man, Mr. Mercer. I have your mother’s journal. I have the master override codes. But I require your physical presence to execute the final transfer.”
“And why on earth would I do that?”
A pause on the line. Then the sound of a woman crying softly in the background—a sound that sent a jolt of ice straight through my chest.
“Because, Elijah,” Kross said gently, “your precious Maria didn't tell you everything. Her daughter, Elena, works as a junior analyst at your Manhattan headquarters. And right now, Elena is sitting in the back of my van in Las Vegas.”
My blood ran cold. “Leave her out of this!”
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“You have six hours,” Kross said coldly. “Bring your biometrics to the top floor of the Grand Horizon Hotel in Las Vegas. Come alone, or the young girl takes a long swim in Lake Mead. Do not call your FBI friends, Elijah. I have eyes on your facility right now.”
The line went dead.
