Chapter 5
The next morning,
the New York skyline was hidden behind a thick blanket of gray fog.
I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the boardroom,
holding a cup of black coffee that I hadn't touched.
Harper sat at the massive oak table,
surrounded by forensic reports detailing the previous night's attack.
"The mercenaries in the Carpathian bunker were professionals,"
Harper explained,
flipping through a thick file.
"They wiped all physical drives before our contractors could reach the site,"
she continued,
frustration evident in her tone.
"They left absolutely no hardware behind,"
I noted,
turning away from the window to face her.
"But nobody escapes a digital space without leaving a footprint,"
I reminded her,
walking toward the main presentation screen.
During the final moments of my counter-attack,
I hadn't just deleted the ghost code.
I had also embedded a microscopic tracking beacon into the outgoing data stream.
It was a digital parasite of my own design,
programmed to attach itself to the administrator's MAC address and report back in silence.
"Did the beacon ping,"
Harper asked,
hope flickering in her eyes.
"It took twelve hours to bypass their scrubbing protocols,"
I said,
tapping the screen to bring up a global map.
"But yes, it pinged."
A single,
bright blue dot appeared on the map,
pulsing steadily in the heart of Geneva, Switzerland.
"Geneva,"
Harper muttered,
a city known for its impenetrable banking secrecy and diplomatic immunity.
"It's the perfect place to hide financial crimes,"
I agreed,
zooming in on the city grid.
The beacon was broadcasting from a highly secure commercial skyscraper,
a building known to house dozens of anonymous corporate entities.
"We can't just hack into a Swiss financial institution,"
Harper warned,
her legal instincts kicking in immediately.
"The international blowback would be catastrophic for the Foundation,"
she added,
outlining the severe risks.
"I don't need to hack them,"
I smiled,
a cold,
calculating expression that mirrored my father's business face.
"I just need to invite them out to play."
I had spent the last three years building defensive software,
but my roots were in offensive cybersecurity.
I decided to launch a localized,
highly targeted financial audit program.
It was entirely legal,
a public scanning tool designed to verify compliance with international transparency laws.
But beneath the surface,
the scanner was specifically tuned to agitate the exact encryption signatures used by the Aegis Holdings shadow accounts.
"You're going to annoy them into making a mistake,"
Harper realized,
a slow grin spreading across her face.
"Exactly,"
I confirmed,
initiating the sequence.
"When criminals feel someone looking at their money,
they always try to move it."
And when they moved it,
we would be waiting to trace the transfer back to the source.
May you like
The trap was set,
and all we had to do was wait for the prey to panic.
