Chapter 168. The Counterstrike

The moment the trap closed was not marked by sirens or shouts, but by a silent, digital domino fall. The "Singapore annex" file, laced with Sabatine’s tracking beacons, was opened on a server cluster located in a nondescript office building in Vilnius, Lithuania—a known cyber-hub for Volkov’s European operations. The beacon didn’t just ping a location; it unleashed a worm, a silent, elegant piece of code written by Sabatine and refined by Rico Nadir. It didn’t steal data; it performed a forensic inventory, mapping the server’s connections, copying access logs, and identifying every user who had touched the ‘Chimera’ files.

Simultaneously, the Prometheus Holdings war chest, now swollen to 1.2 billion dollars, attempted its first major move—a leveraged short-sell order against Rogers Industries stock, intended to profit massively from the collapse Cross was about to engineer. The order hit a wall. Jessica’s pre-filed injunctions, backed by the evidence of the capital’s criminal origins, had frozen the assets. The attempt triggered automatic alerts in seven financial regulatory bodies across three continents.

The snare had teeth.

In the bunker, the atmosphere transformed from grim vigilance to controlled, electric fury. The data from the Vilnius server poured in—a treasure trove of connections. It contained not just proof of the ‘Chimera’ interaction, but archives of communications between Cross’s media company and Volkov handlers, planning the smear campaign. It had internal accounting showing payments from Volkov shell companies to Cross’s “consultancy.” And, most crucially, it had a real-time chat log from a secured channel.

One message, sent just an hour earlier, read: “Package secure. Orchard assets (x2 juvenile, x1 adult) remain in the greenhouse. Awaiting harvest confirmation before pruning.”

“Greenhouse” was geolocated to a rural property outside Riga, Latvia. “Pruning” was the confirmed kill-code from earlier intercepts.

Cho’s family. They had a location.

Leon was already on the secure line to his Latvian counterpart, a former Special Forces brother-in-arms, mobilizing a no-knock raid. “Children are priority one. You blow the door, you find the girls. Everything else is secondary.”

But the centrepiece of the counterstrike was not a raid. It was a narrative, delivered with the cold, precise force of a scalpel.

Anton and Sabatine did not go to the media. They did not issue a press release. They went directly to the regulators—the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and the financial crime units of Interpol and MI6. They requested emergency, sealed hearings.

They presented not a defence, but an indictment.

In a secure video conference that linked the bunker to soundproofed rooms in London, Washington, and Paris, Anton Rogers, looking pale but ferociously composed, began. “For the past week, you have been investigating me based on evidence fabricated by Roland Cross, a paid agent of the Volkov Consortium. I am here not to deny his allegations, but to provide you with the evidence of his crimes, and the crimes of his patrons.”

Then Sabatine took over. On shared, encrypted screens, he walked them through the masterpiece of their deception. He showed them the ‘Chimera’ files, openly admitting they were forgeries. “We fabricated these,” he said, his voice calm and technical. “We built a fictional global acquisition to act as bait. And here,” he brought up the financial trails, “is the proof that Roland Cross and the Volkov Consortium took that bait. They committed over a billion dollars based on this fiction.”

He layered in the evidence: the Prometheus Holdings transactions, linked directly to Volkov banks. The intercepted chats about “the orchard” and “the harvest.” The Vilnius server logs showing Cross’s team accessing the forgeries. The metadata proves the origin of the deepfake audio and the doctored emails.

It was a dizzying, inverted world. The accused were presenting the crimes of the accuser, using their own deceptive plot as the primary evidence. The regulators, initially sceptical and hostile, fell into a stunned silence as the digital paper trail unfolded with irrefutable logic.

One SEC official, a gruff American named Dryden, finally spoke. “You’re admitting to conspiracy to commit market manipulation. You created a false narrative to influence financial markets.”

“We created a narrative to expose a criminal conspiracy already in progress,” Anton corrected, his voice sharp. “The market manipulation was theirs—the short-selling based on stolen funds and lies. We merely illuminated the crime scene. Every step we took was designed to be traceable, to lead directly back to the perpetrators. The ‘manipulation’ was a sting operation.”

“A sting with no official authorization,” Dryden shot back.

“There was no time for authorization,” Sabatine interjected. “They were kidnapping children to force corporate treason. They were seconds from destroying a major international corporation and destabilising trust in global tech security. We acted to preserve evidence and prevent greater harm. All the evidence we gathered is clean, admissible, and points to them.”

He brought up the final, chilling piece. The geolocation for the “greenhouse” outside Riga. “At this moment, a Latvian police unit is raiding this location, attempting to rescue David Cho’s wife and daughters, who were kidnapped to coerce him into stealing company funds. This is the human cost of the conspiracy we are exposing.”

As if on cue, Leon received a terse message on his terminal. He gave a sharp, single nod to Anton.

“The family is secure,” Anton announced to the regulators, his voice cracking just once with the relief he allowed himself. “All three, alive. The kidnappers are in custody.”

The mood in the virtual rooms shifted palpably. This was no longer a dry financial crime. It was kidnapping, coercion, and international espionage.

Jessica then took the lead, presenting the legal framework. She outlined the charges that could now be levelled: racketeering, kidnapping, wire fraud, market manipulation, conspiracy, and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign entity against Roland Cross. For Volkov, it was sanctions evasion, cyber-terrorism, and a host of financial crimes.

“We are prepared to provide all this evidence, in its rawest form, to your agencies,” Jessica concluded. “In exchange, we request a joint statement clearing Anton Rogers and Sabatine Stalker of all allegations, acknowledging their role in uncovering this conspiracy, and a temporary stay on any action regarding the ‘Chimera’ fabrication, given its role as lawful entrapment in an ongoing multinational crime.”

It was a bold, almost arrogant demand. But they held all the cards. They had the evidence, the narrative, and now, the human victory.

The regulators conferred privately on a shielded line. The silence in the bunker stretched, taut as a wire. Sabatine watched Anton, who stood perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the blank screen as if he could see the deliberations behind it. His hand, resting on the table, was a fist.

After ten agonizing minutes, the screens came back to life. Dryden, the SEC official, spoke for the group.

“The evidence is… compelling. And the rescue of the hostages changes the context significantly. We will issue a joint preliminary statement acknowledging the emergence of new evidence implicating Roland Cross and the Volkov Consortium in a criminal plot against Rogers Industries. All current investigations into Mr. Rogers and Mr. Stalker are suspended, pending the full review of the materials you’ve provided.”

He paused, his stern face visible in the feed. “As for the ‘Chimera’ operation… It walks a very fine line. We will not be pursuing action at this time, given the extraordinary circumstances. But do not consider it a precedent. Consider it a… recognition of a debt owed for uncovering a significant threat.”

It was a victory. A staggering, complete victory.

The call ended. The screens went dark.

For a moment, no one in the bunker moved. The hum of the servers was the only sound.

Then Anton let out a long, shuddering breath, his shoulders slumping for the first time in days. He turned to Sabatine, his eyes wide with a disbelieving triumph.

Sabatine felt the adrenaline drain from his body, leaving him lightheaded. They had done it. They had turned the tables not with a shout, but with a whisper of perfect, damning data.

Jessica sagged into a chair, a hand over her face. “My God. We actually pulled it off.”

Leon allowed himself a rare, full grin. “Cho’s on the line. He’s… he’s crying. I want to speak to you, Anton.”

Anton nodded, running a hand over his face. “In a minute.” He walked over to Sabatine. He didn’t kiss him. He didn’t embrace him. He just stood before him, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time—the architect of their salvation, the partner who had walked into the abyss with him and built a ladder out of lies.

“You,” Anton said, his voice thick with emotion, “are a miracle.”

Sabatine shook his head, a tired, genuine smile finally breaking through. “We are. Together.”

The counterstrike was complete. The avalanche of lies had been met with an avalanche of truth, meticulously crafted and lethally delivered. Roland Cross, who had gone to bed thinking he held the knife, would wake to find it buried to the hilt in his own legacy. The empire was saved. The family was safe.

And in a concrete bunker under London, two men who had loved each other in the shadows finally stood, exhausted and victorious, in the light of their own making. The war wasn’t over, but the battle was won. And they had won it side by side.

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