Chapter 3 - THE ZURICH DEADLINEThe digital clock on the wall of the makeshift tactical command center set up in Mercy General’s administrative suite ticked down mercilessly: 03:42:19 and counting.
Special Agent Naomi Pierce slammed her fist onto the folding table. "If those servers wipe, we lose the smoking gun. Without the Zurich logs, Preston’s high-priced lawyers will argue the funds were legally allocated R&D grants."
"Who has the master key?" I asked, pacing across the linoleum floor.
"Grant Calder," Livia replied, pulling up a dossier on her screen. "Preston's younger brother. The golden boy, the Harvard-educated genius who managed the firm’s international software architecture. But Grant was smart—he didn't stay at the mansion. The moment the federal convoy rolled through the gates, he caught a private red-eye flight out of Dulles International."
"Where is he heading?" Mara Bennett asked.
"Not Zurich," I said, stopping my pacing as a cold realization hit me. "He’s not running to the servers. He’s running to the person who holds the ultimate physical backups. Their uncle, Arthur Calder, currently serves as the Senior Undersecretary of Defense Acquisition."
The room fell dead silent. Arthur Calder wasn't just a bureaucrat; he was the man who oversaw every military supply contract in the United States armed forces. If Grant reached him before dawn, they could bury the investigation under a mountain of executive-level national security classifications.
"Can we ground his flight?" Pierce demanded.
"Commercial airspace is one thing, but Grant is flying on a private trans-Atlantic Gulfstream registered under a shell corporation," Livia said, typing furiously on her terminal. "FAA tracking shows he’s crossing into European airspace right now. We can't intercept the plane in mid-air without an act of Congress."
"Then we don't intercept the plane," I said, grabbing my service cap from the table. "We intercept the receiver."
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Nadia, who had wheeled herself into the doorway despite the nurses' protests, looked up at me with fierce determination in her eyes.
"Dad," she said, her voice steady. "Grant didn't use an automated script for the master key. He hardcoded the decryption phrase into an encrypted backup drive he keeps locked in his personal safe at the Calder family townhouse in Georgetown. And I know the combination."
