Chapter 44 - Operation North Star
Within two hours, the quiet peace of Lake Tahoe was replaced by the familiar, high-stakes hum of tactical preparation.
Ethan had managed to ping Marcus Vance’s secure satellite relay. The signal was bouncing off a maritime mobile terminal drifting approximately forty miles off the coast of the Netherlands in the stormy swells of the North Sea.
I stood in the center of the Tahoe study, strapping my tactical holster back onto my waist and sliding the Sig Sauer into place. The familiar weight felt natural, like an extension of my own arm.
My father walked into the study, standing quietly in the doorway. He didn't try to stop me this time. He just looked at me with a quiet, heavy understanding in his eyes.
“You’re leaving again, aren't you?” my father asked softly.
“Just one last loose end, Dad,” I said, walking over to zip up my equipment bag. “The Meridian Group thinks they can outrun the tribunal by taking their servers offshore. We’re going to shut them down before they reach international waters.”
My father sighed, walking over and placing a warm, steady hand on my shoulder. “Be careful, Em. Empires don't like to die quietly.”
“Neither do we,” I replied with a faint smile.
By afternoon, Ethan and I were airborne, chartering a private, unmarked cargo transport out of Reno-Tahoe International under a classified federal transit code provided by General Sterling’s old back-channel contacts. Our destination: a clandestine NATO naval air station near the North Sea coast.
During the ten-hour transatlantic flight, Ethan worked relentlessly on his tactical tablet, pulling up satellite imagery of the target vessel—a massive, converted container ship named the Sovereign Dawn.
“Take a look at this,” Ethan said, sliding the tablet across the folding cabin table.
The screen displayed a high-resolution thermal scan of the Sovereign Dawn. The ship was massive—over nine hundred feet long—with its cargo decks completely refitted into an air-gapped, EMP-shielded server farm housing the Meridian Group’s remaining data archives.
“They’ve got heavy perimeter security on board,” Ethan continued, tapping the screen to zoom in on the flight deck. “At least two dozen private contractors armed with military-grade assault rifles, plus an onboard anti-boarding security system.”
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“And Marcus Vance?” I asked.
“We have a lock on his satellite tracker,” Ethan replied, his expression turning grim. “He’s being held inside the ship’s secure communications bay on Deck Four. If we don’t intercept that vessel before it enters international shipping lanes at midnight tomorrow, the Meridian Group will transfer those drives to a foreign submarine, and we’ll lose them forever.”
