Chapter 46
I creaked open the door of my hotel room, and a surge of irritation washed over me.
The figure perched on the edge of my bed was none other than Bruno Mercier.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped, tossing the key card aside, ready to show that piece of shit the door.
“You’re not the only one with ways of knowing things,” he said with a sly smile. “We need to talk. In private. I don’t have my phone with me, in case you’re worried about that.”
I yanked him up by his collar, the veins on my hands bulging in fury. “Leave before I do something I’ll regret.”
He didn’t try to resist, his gaze fixed on some unseen void. “I’ve already lost everything, so you can’t scare me. You’ll want to sit for what I have to say.”
“Speak. Quickly.” I released him, leaning back against the desk, arms folded. Tick. Tock.
“My company has been developing the most advanced warfare drone, but it’s still in trials. A secret project, almost undetectable by aerial sensors with insane firepower—hellfire missiles, guided bomb units, and—”
“Get to the point.”
“Los Calaveras want the drone.” His voice trembled, his thumbs nervously circling each other. “If they get it, it’ll cause unimaginable destruction. I can’t let that happen, not again. This extremist group is ruthless. They’ll stop at nothing.”
So the deal wasn’t just about the guns, but a fucking advanced warfare drone.
“They’ve been threatening my Dalia this time,” Mercier muttered, his fingers digging into his skull. “They’ll kill her if I don’t comply.”
His words hit me like a virus, corrupting my thoughts. Threatening. Dalia. Kill. The repetition echoed in my mind. My fists clenched. My blood boiled. My jaw locked in a vise grip. “You’re a fucking damn bastard! You put her in danger!”
Once again, I seized Mercier, hurling him against the door, but his lack of resistance suggested a man who had already given up. Weak, so fucking weak. His weakness was underscored by a lone tear lingering in the corner of his eye.
“I thought I could handle them, protect her like I failed to protect my Diana. I agreed for her to go to Pantheon because of its high security, thinking it would be enough.” He gasped, his glassy eyes boring into mine. He massaged his throat where the collar of his shirt dug into his skin. “I thought she’d be protected with Archambault’s family. That’s why she had to be with Sylas and not someone like you. Now it’s over.”
I delivered a powerful blow to the door inches from his face, causing him to flinch. Stepping back, I paced around the room, resisting the urge to throttle him then and there—killing him right now wouldn’t serve me well.
“Why didn’t you say anything to your friend?”
“He was never able to track them down. He doesn’t have any leads on their whereabouts or who they are,” Mercier stammered.
I cracked my neck to the side, the sound of snapping bones filling the room. “What did Los Calaveras say exactly?”
“I have a week to deliver the drone to a geolocation in the Mediterranean Sea, or they’ll kill Dalia. A slow death, not like…” He couldn’t finish the sentence as he sank to his knees, his face buried in his hands.
“Seven days? You’re telling me this now!” I erupted, clearing the desk in a fit of rage. “How long have you known?”
“A couple of weeks, I thought I had it under control, that I could reason with them and—”
“You’re….” I took a deep, steadying breath. “A…” Another breath, my hand trembling with fury. “Fucking.” My heart pounded in my chest. “Idiot.”
The only reason I was sparing him was to protect Dalia, and this fucker had put her in danger all this time. Seven days wasn’t enough. I needed more time to find a way to hack them.
This shouldn’t have happened.
This can’t happen.
I gripped my hair, my nails gouging into my scalp.
His chin quivered. “What you said at Christmas, you really do love her? If you’re as skilled as you say you are, you have to find them before… I can’t give them the drone.”
I pressed my hand against my forehead, and my feet rhythmically tapped the floor. No one had found them in twenty years; they were ghosts. A week. “How did they contact you?”
“Emails, phone calls. All encrypted and self-destructive. No name. My best engineers couldn’t penetrate their encryption. I’ll give you my passwords, everything, but I—”
A laugh escaped my lips. Even by hacking Mercier, I couldn’t trace back to them. I had nothing to start with. “So I, a single man, have to find the deadliest mercenary group in the world in order to fix your mistake, or else I lose the only person I’ve ever loved?”
I hate this bastard.
He stayed quiet, and my mind went into a fucking delirium.
I had to regain control.
“You’ve got a rat in your enterprise,” I stated. “They wouldn’t have this intel without an insider.”
“I trust my—”
“Shut up!” I bellowed, the voices in my head clamoring for control. I needed a plan and fast. I was almost making my skull bleed by jabbing it with my fingers, already running algorithms in my head. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Trust nobody. They’ll check the drone for tampering or malware. If they sense a threat, they’ll neutralize it. They’ll run it at the coordinates, so it has to work perfectly.”
“They can’t deploy it! The repercussions would be catastrophic, and—”
“I know,” I croaked, folding my arms at my sides. “We must outsmart them, and for that, you’ll hand over the drone.”
“But what if you fail?” His voice pitched. “Do you even have a plan?”
“You don’t have a choice,” I rasped. I didn’t have a choice either. “I’m not letting them threaten my Dalia.”
I promised myself if everyone else has to die to keep her alive, so be it.
I had one idea, one way for us to win, but I didn’t know if it was possible. What if I fucking fail? What if my skills were useless when I needed them. I can’t fail. I can’t lose her. I can’t. I can’t.
“I can’t find the answer to the puzzle. I give up; this is too hard,” I remembered the kid in me whining to my mother, when she created those impossible-to-decipher puzzles.
“It’s because you got lost, you followed the wrong paths. A puzzle is like a maze, a wrong path, deviating from the trajectory. Start from scratch,” she had said.
A maze.
“The only way to find them is to wait for them to make a mistake,” I muttered, my mind already envisioning the lines of code. “And everyone makes a mistake eventually. Especially when you think you’re untouchable.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re the mistake.” I pointed at Mercier. He was the bug in the system. “And the drone is our Trojan horse.”
Mercier was the key to end their reign, and the drone was the only solution to find them. Our only chance. Dalia wouldn’t have to hide anymore. Those monsters wouldn’t haunt her nightmares.
“What?” that clueless piece of shit asked.
“I’m going to create a virtual maze within the drone’s program,” I said. “If anyone tries to tamper with the code, the maze activates, delaying their progress. I would be able to monitor their attempts, and trace their location while they struggle to navigate the maze. But the code has to be invisible. Undetected. It’ll have to mimic the software components and evade signature-based detection methods.”
“Can you do this?” Mercier frowned.
It was a calculated risk, even if I had omitted one crucial detail. The maze would only activate if they attempted to change the code; otherwise, I was screwed. However, a group of their caliber would never blindly trust someone like Mercier, in case he had planted a tracking device, and that would be their downfall. No fallback strategy existed. It was all about executing a singular Plan A. The only route to secure Dalia’s freedom definitively and obliterate the notion of powerlessness from my wretched existence.
“Only I can do this,” I said. I didn’t trust any engineers from the government to do my thing.
It was my cyber warfare.
I had never crafted softwares that powerful. No one ever had.
“I’ll craft the most complicated maze ever done. They’ll never be able to escape. I’ll corrupt each of their systems one by one to dissect their data. I’ll find those fucking bastards, but you—” I jabbed a finger at Mercier. “You’ll have a special task. You’ll reach out to your dear minister of the French army friend, and have him stand by for my signal to apprehend them. You’ll meet him face-to-face in person and tell him the truth. Somewhere private, with no phone or hackable Wi-Fi. And if you fail…” I towered close to him, my lips etching into a scowl. “I’ll have no qualms about making you suffer.”
He nodded.
I snapped my fingers and gestured toward the door. “Now, let’s move.”
“Where?”
“To your premises.” I gritted my teeth, keeping my patience in check. He was so slow to follow. “And remember, after that all you have to do is show up at the meeting spot. And if you could manage to look as pitifully weak and guilty as you do right now, it might just coax them into taking the bait.”
One way or another, this had to end.
In a week.
And I’d have to lie to her one last time.