Chapter 8 - The Signal Source
Down in the subterranean security control hub of the Moretti estate, the banks of computer monitors glowed in the dim subterranean light.
Daniel Thorne leaned over the shoulder of the lead systems engineer, watching the green waveform pulse across the central display.
"The transmitter we recovered from the nursery just went active again," the engineer reported, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard.
"It's looping the audio feed we programmed."
"Good," Daniel muttered, chewing on a cold cigar.
"Are they trying to decrypt the handshake protocol?"
"Negative, Commander."
The engineer pointed a stylus at a secondary window tracking IP addresses.
"They aren't just listening."
"They're initiating a data dump from a secondary node located inside our perimeter."
Daniel stood up instantly.
"A secondary node? Inside the compound?"
"Yes, sir."
"The signal isn't coming from outside the estate walls."
"It's originating from the residential staff quarters on the west side of the gardens."
A cold chill washed over Daniel's neck.
The staff quarters housed twenty-four domestic employees, cooks, gardeners, and maintenance staff—people vetted over decades.
Or so they had believed.
"Get a tactical team down to the staff quarters immediately," Daniel ordered, his hand sweeping down toward his belt.
"No sirens, no flashlights."
"Surround every exit, and bring whoever is in room 112 to the sub-level interrogation room."
"Who occupies room 112?" the engineer asked, hesitating with his hand over the enter key.
"That belongs to Marcus Vance," Daniel said grimly.
"Head of estate maintenance."
"He's worked for the Moretti family for fifteen years."
"Fifteen years is a long time to build a false identity," Daniel replied, pulling his sidearm from its holster and racking the slide with a sharp, metallic clack.
"Move."
Within four minutes, twelve armed security operatives moved through the shadows of the estate gardens like silent ghosts.
They converged on the modest brick building of the staff quarters.
The door of room 112 was locked from the inside.
Daniel didn't bother knocking.
With a devastating kick of his steel-toed boot, the heavy wooden door splintered inward, crashing against the interior wall.
The room was dark.
A laptop sat open on a small wooden desk, its screen glowing with scrolling lines of encrypted hex code.
A cellular modem plugged into the USB port was pulsing with a frantic red light.
Sitting frozen in the swivel chair was Marcus Vance, a middle-aged man with thinning gray hair and wide, terror-stricken eyes.
His fingers hovered inches from the keyboard's self-destruct macro.
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"Don't move a muscle, Marcus," Daniel whispered, pressing the barrel of his pistol against the center of the man's forehead.
"It's over."
