Chapter 12 - The Inside Man
By 2:00 AM, my condo was a crime scene of my own making. I ignored the slashed furniture and ripped floorboards, sitting on the floor with my laptop completely encrypted. If I was going to outsmart a global syndicate leader like Julian Vance, I needed someone who knew how criminals hid their money. I needed a rat.I pulled up a secure messaging app and typed a number I had sworn I would never use again. It belonged to Marcus Thorne, Adrian Caldwell’s former chief accountant. Marcus had taken a massive plea deal during the trial, trading his immunity for the Caldwells' destruction. He was currently living under a new name in a quiet suburb of Seattle.
“I have a problem,” I typed. “The name is Julian Vance.”
For ten agonizing minutes, the screen remained blank. Then, a reply flashed.
“Are you insane? Lose this number.”
I typed furiously. “He has documents proving I’m the sole proprietor of a Geneva account holding a cipher. If I go down, I will drag you with me, Marcus. I will tell Hayes you set up the account.”
It was a bluff, but a necessary one. Three minutes later, my phone buzzed with an incoming voice call.
"You are poking a sleeping dragon," Marcus hissed through the encrypted line, his voice laced with genuine terror. "Julian Vance isn't a businessman. He’s an executioner. If he has you tied to a Swiss account, you are already dead."
"I am flying to Geneva tomorrow to open the vault," I stated coldly. "I have the silver key. What I need from you is the exact protocol for accessing an elite offshore vault, and a way to bypass Julian’s security once I have the cipher in my hands."
Marcus let out a ragged sigh. "The bank is likely the Banque Privée de Genève. They don't just use keys. They use biometric voice prints. If Adrian forged the account in your name, he likely used an audio deepfake of your voice to set the password."
"How do I bypass it?"
"You can't. But if you get inside, there is a secondary protocol," Marcus explained rapidly. "If the account holder feels compromised, there is a duress code. If you whisper the word 'Icarus' into the biometric scanner, the vault will open, but it silently triggers a local police response and locks down the bank. You’ll have exactly three minutes to grab the cipher before the Swiss authorities swarm the building."
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"And Julian?" I asked.
"Julian will be trapped inside the bank with you," Marcus said grimly. "But you better have a damn good exit strategy, because if he realizes what you've done, he will kill you right there in the vault."
