Chapter 6 - The Trap is Sprung
I parked my sedan in the shadows across the street from the sleek glass building of Apex Global Solutions. Through the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows on the third floor, I could see the silhouette of a man pacing with a glass of scotch in his hand. Arthur Sterling.
My tactical brain went into overdrive. If I called local law enforcement, Arthur’s legal team of high-priced corporate defense lawyers would wipe the servers clean before a warrant could even be signed. If I involved military command without hard, undeniable proof of espionage, it would trigger a bureaucratic nightmare that could stall my career.
This required a black-ops approach. Direct, surgical, and completely off the books.
I pulled a tactical encryption override drive from my glove compartment—a specialized piece of military-grade hardware designed to bypass corporate firewalls—and checked the battery on my encrypted comms link.
"Major Vance," I whispered into the secure radio channel, routing directly to David Vance on base.
"Colonel? You’re off-site, ma'am. Status report?" David’s voice crackled back, instantly alert.
"I’ve located the architect behind the Ryan-Linda conspiracy," I said quietly, keeping my eyes fixed on the lit window across the street. "Arthur Sterling. Former defense contractor operative, current economic espionage coordinator. He’s running a front company called Apex Global Solutions."
"Arthur Sterling?" David’s breath caught. "The guy you busted for classified data leakage back in 2016? I thought he fled the country."
"He came back. He groomed Ryan, manipulated Linda, and orchestrated the entire financial sabotage operation to ruin my clearance and force me out of the military."
"Ma'am, what are your orders? Shall I dispatch a quick-reaction force?"
"Negative," I replied, opening my car door and stepping out into the cool night air. "This is a private intelligence retrieval operation. I’m going in alone to pull his local server logs. If I’m not back on base by 0400 hours, you transmit the encrypted flash-drive data directly to the Department of Justice and the FBI counter-intelligence division. Understood?"
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"Understood, Colonel. Be careful out there. He’s dangerous."
I smiled in the darkness. Dangerous? Arthur Sterling had no idea what kind of monster he had awakened when he decided to mess with a United States Army Colonel.
