Chapter 11 - The Voice on the Other End of the Line
The satellite phone sat on the cold metal utility table, its screen glowing with a single pulsing green waveform.
Nobody breathed.
For ten seconds, the only sound in the service hallway was the distant, muffled bass of the string quartet playing through the museum walls.
Then, the speaker clicked.
“Report, Julian. The Chicago operation was supposed to be wrapped up last week. Why are you pinging this channel on an unsecured local relay?”
The voice was modulated—deep, metallic, and devoid of any human warmth.
I looked at Damian. He gave me a sharp, decisive nod.
I stepped forward, leaning directly over the speaker grill.
“Julian can't come to the phone right now, Chairman,” I said clearly. “He’s currently indisposed.”
Silence stretched across the secure line—a heavy, tense vacuum.
“...Who is this?”
“My name is Evelyn Hart. And my daughter sends her regards.”
“Evelyn Hart. The federal stray.” A cold, synthetic chuckle hissed through the speaker. “You survived the warehouse. You survived the mercenaries. But you must be profoundly arrogant to believe a domestic audit can touch an international syndicate.”
“I don't rely on audits anymore,” I replied, tapping my phone screen to trigger the trace program we had routed through the museum’s main communication grid. “I rely on math. And right now, my trace program is bouncing your satellite relay through seven different proxy servers in Zurich, Frankfurt, and the Cayman Islands.”
“You think you can trace me?” The voice sneered. “Try.”
“Done,” I said smoothly as the progress bar hit one hundred percent.
Across the screen, the exact GPS coordinates of the Chairman’s primary offshore terminal flashed in bright red numbers: Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Private estate, Sector 4.
“Got him,” I whispered, locking the coordinates and automatically transmitting them via encrypted burst to Director Vance at the Bureau, along with an international arrest warrant request.
The voice on the satellite phone suddenly shifted, the metallic modulation dropping as if the speaker had panicked.
“You—what have you done?”
“Just leveling the playing field,” I said.
Before the Chairman could utter another word, Damian reached out, picked up the satellite phone, and smashed it down hard against the concrete floor, shattering it into a hundred useless plastic and silicon pieces.
May you like
Julian collapsed against the wall, sliding down into a heap, staring up at us as if we were ghosts.
“As for you, Julian,” Damian said coldly, stepping over the ruined phone. “The federal authorities will be arriving at your front gate in approximately four minutes. Try to look surprised.”
