Chapter 3 - The Ghost Network
The Fort Carson Military Hospital was quiet, illuminated only by the soft green glow of heart monitors and the hum of the heating vents. Emma and Noah were asleep in the private VIP wing, protected by two armed guards stationed outside the door. Dr. Harris had assured me that Emma’s frostbite was superficial—she had shielded Noah so perfectly that the baby hadn't suffered any tissue damage. She had sacrificed her own body to save our son.
I sat in the corner of the room, the glow of my laptop screen lighting my face. Major Lena Ortiz sat opposite me, drinking black coffee.
"The legal paperwork they filed is a joke, Ethan," Lena said, sliding a folder across the table. "They used a forged power of attorney to transfer your house deed into your father’s name. They also attempted to freeze your military allotment account, claiming Emma had abandoned the property. It’s high-level wire fraud and identity theft."
"They didn't do this alone," I said, my eyes tracking the data lines on my screen. "My father is greedy, but he’s sloppy. My brother Kyle is a gambling addict who owes two million to offshore sportsbooks. They needed money, fast. But to alter my bank records and inheritance trust, they needed an insider. Someone at Vance Global Trust."
"Can you trace it?" Lena asked, leaning in.
"Before I joined the Special Forces, I was a cyber-intelligence officer, Lena," I murmured, my fingers flying across the keyboard. "My father forgets that I built the encryption systems for his own logistics company ten years ago. He thinks I’m just a trigger-puller now."
I bypassed the security firewalls of the Vance Trust Company. Within ten minutes, I found the digital signature that had authorized the fraudulent transfer of my inheritance assets.
The name on the digital file wasn't my father's. It belonged to Arthur Pendelton, the chief financial officer of my father's company and my godfather.
"Arthur," I whispered, a bitter smile touching my lips. "The man who gave me my first hunting rifle. He sold me out for a corporate kickback."
"What’s the play, Captain?" Lena asked, her eyes tightening with professional focus.
"In the sandbox, when a sniper is hiding in a village, you don't shoot back blindly," I said, closing the laptop with a sharp click. "You cut off his water. You cut off his ammunition. You make him so desperate he has to run into the open. Arthur Pendelton handles the black-budget accounts for my father's shipping company. If I expose Arthur, the entire Vance empire crumbles."
I pulled out my satellite phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in two years. It belonged to Marcus "Ghost" Vance, my father's estranged older brother, who had been pushed out of the family business twenty years ago.
The phone rang twice before a gravelly, old voice answered. "Who is this?"
"Uncle Marcus. It's Ethan."
A long silence stretched over the line. "Ethan. I heard you were overseas. Or dead."
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"I’m alive, Uncle Marcus. And I’m ready to give you back the company my father stole from you twenty years ago. But I need your keys to the old corporate database in Chicago."
Marcus let out a low, dark laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. "I’ve been waiting twenty years for this call, nephew. Tell me what we’re killing first."
