Chapter 38 - The Dossier from The Hague
I pulled open the heavy oak doors just as Sarah reached the top of the stone steps. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was sharp, focused, and carrying an unmistakable sense of urgency.
“Avery,” she breathed out, stepping past me into the warm entryway without waiting for an invitation. “Thank God you’re actually here, and the secure ping didn't route to a ghost.”
“Sarah, calm down,” I said, closing the heavy door behind her and locking it automatically. “How did you find this place? The Tahoe estate isn't on any public registry or classified military database.”
“Michael gave me the emergency coordinates before he passed away,” she said, setting her battered leather briefcase down on the entryway console table and snapping open the brass latches. “And frankly, Avery, your digital footprint during the Oakland Bay transport operation was subtle enough for the NSA, but to an archivist who tracks transnational war crimes for a living, you left a trail of breadcrumbs a mile wide.”
Ethan walked out from the study, his expression cautious. “Sarah. It’s been a long time. What’s happening in Europe?”
Sarah didn't waste time with pleasantries. She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a thick, heavy manila folder stamped with the crimson seal of the International Court of Justice, sliding it across the wooden table toward us.
“Project Ironclad was just the tip of the iceberg,” Sarah said, her voice dropping to a tense, urgent whisper. “When your data dump hit the DOJ servers yesterday, it triggered an automated dead-man protocol embedded in a classified Swiss bank account. An account controlled not by Viktor Petrov, nor by Director Hayes... but by someone much higher up the food chain.”
She opened the folder, revealing a photograph of a sleek, modern corporate skyscraper overlooking Lake Geneva, alongside a dossier bearing a name I hadn’t heard spoken aloud in over a decade.
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“Who?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the photograph.
“General Vance’s old command circle,” Sarah replied grimly. “They didn't just fund the syndicate. They’re currently orchestrating a global transition of power, and according to these documents, their next operational phase begins in less than seventy-two hours.”
