Chapter 16 - The Silent Assassin
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Rebecca Collins stepped forward, placing herself directly in front of the restrained intruder. The harsh beam of a flashlight illuminated his impassive, hardened face. He looked bored, rather than terrified of the federal agent standing inches from him.
"Who sent you?" Rebecca demanded, her voice a sharp crack of authority in the quiet room.
No answer. The man simply stared straight ahead, his jaw locked tight.
"I asked you a question," Rebecca repeated, leaning closer. "Who paid you to walk into a hospital and attempt to murder a pregnant woman?"
Still nothing. The man didn't even blink. He simply lowered his gaze to the linoleum floor, exuding an aura of absolute, practiced silence.
Rebecca smiled faintly, a grim, acknowledging smirk. She recognized the type immediately.
"You've been trained," Rebecca noted quietly, stepping back and crossing her arms. "Military background? Or private military contractor? You know how to handle an interrogation."
David Sterling stood next to Marcus, his expression dark and calculating.
"Professionals of his caliber rarely work for free, Agent Collins," David pointed out. "And they certainly don't take on high-risk hits in secure hospitals without a massive payout."
Rebecca nodded in agreement. "Exactly. He's a ghost, but his money leaves a trail."
She turned her attention to the evidence table and picked up the cheap, plastic burner phone through a protective bag.
"Trace the burner phone," Rebecca ordered the technical agent standing near the door. "Now."
The agent powered the device on. It was a simple, outdated model, completely devoid of apps or contacts. The agent quickly navigated to the call history.
Only one single number appeared in the recent call log. There was no name attached to it. Just an outgoing call made exactly twelve minutes earlier, right before the hospital's power grid was expertly sabotaged.
Rebecca immediately requested a live, emergency trace on the number, utilizing federal authority to bypass standard telecom delays.
The room waited in suffocating, tense silence. The only sound was the frantic tapping of the agent's fingers on his encrypted laptop keyboard.
Less than a minute later, the technician looked up, his eyes wide behind his glasses.
"We've got a live location on the receiving phone, Agent Collins."
"Where is it?" Rebecca demanded, stepping closer to the laptop screen.
The technician swallowed hard, realizing the monumental implication of the data he was looking at.
"The phone signal leads directly to a secure, private network inside a luxury office building downtown..."
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His fingers froze over the keyboard for a second before he finished the sentence.
"The network is registered exclusively to the executive penthouse of Voss International Holdings."
