Chapter 5 - THE VEGAS CONFRONTATION
The penthouse suite of the Grand Horizon Hotel was a lavish, neon-lit nightmare overlooking the glittering strip of Las Vegas. High-end marble, gold leafing, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls looked out over the desert valley.
I walked into the suite at precisely 11:30 PM. I wore a dark suit, no coat, and kept my hands visible.
Sitting on a leather sofa near the balcony was Viktor Kross—a lean, grey-haired man in his fifties with sharp blue eyes and a tailored charcoal suit. Two heavy-set men in tactical gear stood near the entry doors, silenced sidearms held casually at their sides.
In the corner of the room, bound to a chair with tape over her mouth, was Elena—Maria’s twenty-four-year-old daughter. Her eyes were wide with terror when she saw me walk in.
“Mr. Mercer,” Kross said, standing up and opening his arms in a mock gesture of hospitality. “Punctual. I respect that in a businessman.”
“Where is the journal?” I demanded, taking a step toward him.
Kross tapped a leather briefcase sitting on the glass coffee table. “Right here. Safe and sound. Along with the encrypted hard drives Vanessa hid in your Greenwich residence.”
“Let Elena go,” I said, pointing at the terrified young woman. “She has nothing to do with Mercer Aerospace. She’s an intern.”
“She is leverage,” Kross corrected simply. “And leverage is the only currency that matters in our line of work. Place your right hand on this scanner, complete the system handshake for Project Aegis, and you both walk out of here alive.”
He slid a high-tech biometric reader across the table toward me.
I looked at the reader, then looked at Kross. “You really think Vanessa was working for you, don't you?”
Kross frowned slightly, his sharp eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”
I pulled a small digital recorder from my inner jacket pocket and hit play.
Vanessa’s voice filled the high-rise room, clear and crisp, recorded from the federal interrogation room in New York just eight hours earlier.
“Kross thinks he’s in control,” Vanessa’s recorded voice sneered. “He’s an idiot. I set up a secondary mirror site in Zurich. The second he accesses the Aegis mainframe using Elijah’s biometrics, the entire data packet will bypass Kross’s server and wipe his off-shore accounts clean. He’s taking all the risk while I get paid by the Chinese.”
Kross’s face turned ash grey. The smooth, calm demeanor melted away in a split second of absolute fury.
“She’s lying,” Kross muttered, though his eyes betrayed his panic.
“Is she?” I asked, stepping closer. “Vanessa Thorne doesn't have loyalty to you, Kross. She doesn't have loyalty to anyone. She played me for eighteen months, and she played you for three years. The moment I touch that scanner, your entire network gets burned to the ground, and the FBI tracks the signal straight to your safehouses in Berlin.”
Kross reached into his jacket for a weapon.
“Now, Marcus!” I yelled.
The floor-to-ceiling glass windows behind Kross exploded inward in a shower of brilliant silver sparks.
Two flashbang grenades detonated with deafening booms, filling the penthouse with blinding white light and disorienting sound.
Before Kross’s guards could react, the heavy oak front doors of the suite were kicked off their hinges. Marcus Vance and a team of elite private tactical operatives swarmed the room, weapons raised, securing the perimeter in less than four seconds.
Kross was thrown to the carpet, his weapon skidding across the marble floor.
I lunged forward, grabbed Elena from the chair, shielding her body with mine as Marcus’s men tackled the remaining guard to the ground.
“Clear!” Marcus shouted, his rifle pointed directly at the back of Kross’s head. “Room secure!”
I pulled the tape from Elena’s mouth and cut her restraints. She collapsed against my chest, sobbing heavily. “Mr. Mercer... my mother... is she—”
“Your mother is fine, Elena,” I said softly, helping her to her feet. “She’s safe in Connecticut. And it’s over.”
I walked over to the glass coffee table, picked up my mother’s leather-bound journal from the open briefcase, and held it tightly against my chest.
May you like
Kross looked up from the floor, blood trickling from his lip. “You... you tricked me. The recording...”
I looked down at him with dark satisfaction. “Vanessa did say those words, Kross. But I didn't get them from an interrogation room. I got them from the hidden cameras in my own home three days ago. You were both so busy trying to outsmart each other that you forgot who built the house.”
