Chapter 25 - The Trap is Set|
Back at Marcus’s highly secure, windowless downtown office, we sat in incredibly tense silence as his lead cybersecurity expert, a brilliant, eccentric hacker named David, worked intensely on decrypting Caroline’s USB drive. While David typed furiously on his complex multi-monitor setup, I sat quietly on the leather sofa and read Caroline's journal from cover to cover.
It was a deeply chilling, meticulous documentation of pure corporate greed and vast criminal enterprise. Caroline had detailed exactly how Richard deliberately used his supposedly legitimate investment firm to meticulously wash millions of dollars in drug cartel profits for Elias Thorne. She thoroughly outlined the dummy corporations, the completely fake real estate transactions, and the untraceable offshore accounts. Daniel, to his credit, hadn't orchestrated the initial laundering, but he had happily and greedily helped his father cover it up and skim heavily off the top.
Daniel absolutely thinks he is untouchable because he cowers and hides behind his father’s massive shadow, Caroline had written angrily on one of the final pages. But he is a pathetic coward. When Thorne inevitably comes collecting, Daniel will easily sell out anyone to save his own skin.
"She had his number perfectly," I murmured, snapping the heavy journal closed.
"I'm in," David announced suddenly from his computer desk, breaking the silence. "The military encryption is broken."
Marcus and I rushed instantly over to the glowing screens. Endless lines of financial data, massive bank names, and staggering account balances populated the monitors.
"Are the cartel funds still actually there?" Marcus asked eagerly, leaning closer.
David clicked rapidly through several hidden folders. "Yes. It's perfectly spread across a dozen highly secure accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. Total verified sum: exactly fifty-two million dollars. It hasn't been touched or moved in over five years."
"Okay," I said, taking a massive, shaky deep breath, my mind racing brilliantly with a sudden, highly audacious plan. "We definitively have the money. We have the absolute proof of the money laundering. Now we desperately need to set the bait."
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"Bait?" Marcus asked, instantly raising a highly skeptical eyebrow. "Rachel, the safest thing to do is hand this drive directly to the FBI right now and let them arrest Thorne."
"If we just hand it over, Thorne might retaliate violently against my family before the FBI can build a solid case and actually locate him," I argued passionately. "He’s a ghost, Julian said so himself. We need to actively draw him out into the open. And I need to make absolutely sure Daniel's direct involvement in threatening my children is exposed on tape so he never gets out of prison."
