Chapter 20 - There Was Still a Traitor Inside Meridian
Grant Mercer had confessed to enough crimes to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.
But he had not planted the classified code.
Neither had Nolan.
Federal investigators confirmed it within twenty-four hours.
The timestamps didn’t match.
Mercer’s sabotage team had inserted false financial records and constructed the hidden compartment beneath my garage.
But the Atlas repository breach occurred after Mercer’s people had already lost access to our internal network.
Someone inside Meridian had taken advantage of the chaos.
Which meant we had two conspiracies.
The second one might be worse.
David called an emergency meeting.
I attended only as a technical consultant under federal supervision.
Agent Sloan stood beside the screen.
“The classified code originated from a Defense Department research program called Nightglass.”
Nobody reacted except one person.
Thomas Granger.
I saw it.
A tiny movement.
His shoulders tightened.
I looked at Lawrence.
He saw it too.
Sloan continued.
“Nightglass was canceled five years ago after a prototype vulnerability caused remote-control instability.”
Thomas cleared his throat.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with Meridian.”
Sloan looked at him.
“Neither were we.”
She advanced the slide.
A list of Nightglass investors appeared.
One company was highlighted.
GRANGER ADVANCED SYSTEMS.
Thomas stared at the screen.
My pulse slowed.
“You funded Nightglass.”
He looked at me.
“Years ago.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“It’s classified technology inside my company.”
“I said it wasn’t relevant then.”
David leaned forward.
“Thomas, did you have access to the code?”
“No.”
Sloan answered for him.
“His company did.”
Thomas stood.
“I want counsel present.”
Elena smiled without humor.
“That’s probably the smartest thing you’ve said today.”
Thomas left the room.
Lawrence followed discreetly.
Twenty minutes later, he called.
“He’s running.”
Security cameras showed Thomas entering the underground garage.
Two agents moved to intercept him.
His vehicle smashed through the exit barrier.
He disappeared into traffic.
That answered several questions.
Not all.
Why frame me?
Why now?
We searched Thomas’s board office.
Inside his locked cabinet, we found documents showing enormous short positions against Meridian’s private debt instruments.
If Meridian collapsed, Thomas would make hundreds of millions.
But the deeper motive appeared in a handwritten contract.
A proposed asset sale.
Buyer: Sentinel Reconstruction Partners.
Not Grant Mercer.
The company had been created only six weeks earlier.
Its beneficial owner was hidden behind a trust.
David looked at me.
“Could Mercer have another partner?”
“Maybe.”
Elena studied the paperwork.
“Or someone was planning to profit from Mercer’s attack without Mercer knowing.”
Arthur Hughes joined through video.
“Thomas never had the capital to execute this alone.”
“Then who does?” Clara asked.
Nobody answered.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Marcus?”
A woman’s voice.
I recognized it.
Vanessa.
She sounded terrified.
“Where are you?”
“Outside my apartment.”
“What happened?”
“Someone left something on my door.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
She began crying.
“Of you and Clara at your wedding.”
My jaw tightened.
“What else?”
“There’s writing on the back.”
“Read it.”
Vanessa hesitated.
Then whispered:
THE WRONG WIFE SURVIVED.
I stood.
“Get inside your car. Lock the doors. Lawrence is coming.”
“It gets worse.”
“How?”
“There’s another photograph.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Her voice shook violently.
“It was taken this morning.”
Someone was watching her.
“Vanessa, listen carefully—”
A loud crash came through the phone.
Then she screamed.
The call disconnected.
I was moving before anyone spoke.
Lawrence met me downstairs.
“We have her location.”
We reached Vanessa’s apartment twelve minutes later.
Her car sat with the driver’s door open.
Her purse lay on the pavement.
Her phone was shattered beside it.
Vanessa was gone.
On the windshield, written in red marker, were three words.
BRING ELIAS’S NOTEBOOK.
Clara stared at the message.
Then at me.
“This isn’t Thomas.”
“No.”
“Who else knows about your father’s notebook?”
I thought about the original warehouse.
About Nolan.
Mercer.
Thomas.
Then another name surfaced.
A name from Meridian’s earliest days.
Someone who had disappeared before Nolan.
Someone my father once trusted completely.
My father’s younger brother.
May you like
Raymond Reed.
The uncle I hadn’t seen in eighteen years.
