Chapter 18 - The Phantom in the Network"Marcus, what's happening?" Emily asked, stepping into the study, sensing the sudden drop in temperature in the room. She saw the FAA folder on my desk and her face paled. "Is it another attack?"
"The fleet is grounded," I said, my voice dangerously calm as I stared at the documents. "Someone inside the federal transport bureau just issued an emergency freeze on all Whitaker Logistics assets."
"That's impossible," Emily said, walking over and placing her hand on my shoulder. "Sterling's arrest was supposed to dismantle the syndicate. Whoever is doing this... they have friends much higher up than Victor."
"Exactly," I growled, pulling out my encrypted satellite phone. "Miller! Get the private cybersecurity terminal up in the war room. We are going to rip open every federal database until we find out who signed this order."
For the next six hours, the mansion transformed into a digital command center. Screens flickered with code, data streams, and financial ledgers. My eyes burned from lack of sleep, but the adrenaline driving me forward was pure, unadulterated fury.
Emily stayed right by my side, bringing me coffee, holding Zion when he fussed, and occasionally pointing out anomalies in corporate shell company records that my financial analysts had missed.
"Look at this timestamp, Marcus," Emily said, leaning over my shoulder and pointing at a line of code on the main monitor. "The federal freeze order wasn't filed from Washington. It was routed through a private satellite relay station located right here in Chicago."
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I zoomed in on the coordinate data. The location wasn't a government building.
It was an abandoned warehouse district on the city's industrial waterfront—owned by a dormant shell corporation registered under a single, chilling name: The Phoenix Group.
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