Chapter 21: Anton's Dilemma

All had converged on the hot face of Anton's computer and the four walls of the new, even more anonymous safe house. The Eaux-Vives one was no longer secure; this was a drab, modern apartment in Carouge, all IKEA and beige walls, purchased with traceless funds from a safety deposit box he alone knew. His empire wandered, a ghost ship, on trajectory without its helmsman, while he was dead and interred in a grave of his own design.

His lawyers had delivered the evidence dossier. "A courtesy copy," his lead lawyer had spoken over an encrypted channel, his tone serious. "The case against the prosecution is. daunting, Anton. I suggest that you stay back. Publicly and in court. Immediately.".

The report was open on his screen now. He stared at it for an hour without scrolling. It was a digital coffin, and to read it was to hammer the final nail into Sabe's.

He took a serrated breath and began reading.

It was worse than he had imagined. The evidence was not only compelling; it was an elegy of damnation, each step more poignant than the last.

Exhibit A: Digital Forensics Report. The encrypted emails were laid out in graphic detail. The jargon was dense, but the upshot was certain: a Sabe-associated account on his personal device had engaged with an established spybroker. The tone was remote, clinical, detailing the prototype's vulnerable spots and the planned removal during the fire alarm test. The timestamps were immaculate, placing the exchanges in the days immediately after Sabe's hiring, a period of frantic, isolated inquiry.

Exhibit B: Physical Evidence Report. The fingerprint. An intact, smudged thumb print that was lifted from the middle console, the epicenter of the thermite blast. The report stated the print to be on a surface that was somewhat shielded from the full force of the heat, an anomaly for the prosecution. It was Sabe's print. The report placed it with a 99.8% certainty.

Exhibit C: Ledger of Financial Transactions. Two million euros. The trail had been crooked, a Russian matryoshka doll of shell companies, but the forensic team had traced it. The money had originated in some dark organization, passed through three different jurisdictions, and ended up in an old, dormant Cayman Islands account that carried Sabe's name from his early freelance days. An account that had never been discovered by Anton's own security team.

It was a closely woven circle. Motive (greed), Opportunity (unlimited access), Means (his skill, the emails, the fingerprint). So tidy. So rational. The kind of case that won cases and destroyed careers.

Anton pushed back from the table, his chair scraping harshly on the laminate surface. He paced the small room, his fist knotted in his hair. A storm of conflicting emotions tore through him, each clamoring for dominance.

Fury. A white, burning fury. How was it that he had been so stupid? He had let this man into his house, his own self-esteem. He had trusted him. He had felt it. something for him. And while Sabe had been stringing him along all this time, setting the stage for the biggest scam of his career. The kiss in the hotel room—was that a calculation, too? A way to play on his feelings, confuse his head? The thought was making his stomach turn over, hard.

Betrayal. This hurt more than any company betrayal. It hurt in a personal way. He had taken Sabe behind the walls he hid behind, shared with him his fissures, his weaknesses. He had shared with him his greatest fear—that all his confidants would sell him out. And Sabe had just stood there, those tempestuous, genuine eyes, and become the very manifestation of that fear. He had not only taken a prototype; he had taken the delicate, nascent hope Anton had felt brave enough to foster.

Rage. And beneath the anger and the feeling of betrayal, a darker, more malevolent emotion was coiling in his gut. Fear. Not of Sabe, but of being wrong.

What if the man he had seen in the fire—the man who had sheltered him with his own body, pulled him through flames without regard for reward—was the true man? What if the man who had shaken on the floor of the safe house, shattered by the leak of news, was real?

He recalled Sabe's insistence on not explaining his methods on the flight. Proprietary. Was it the arrogance of a master thief protecting his business methods, or the confidentiality of playing in a game where the rules were different?

He looked at the evidence itself. Too clean. The truth in his world of high-risk business and corporate warfare was not clean. It was sloppy. It had loose ends, contradictions, flawed human errors. This case was too perfect. It was a narrative, constructed with calculated coolness of machinery. It was a puzzle in which each piece was crafted specifically to fit into place.

He stopped his pacing and stood before the window, looking out over the lifeless courtyard below. Memory of the server room fire struck him—the scorching heat, the bitter smoke, the roar of the flames. And Sabe's voice, cold with command. "Move!" The crush of Sabe's hand, as unyielding as iron, pulled him to safety. The look of him turning, taking in the glass shower on his own back.

A saboteur interested in incinerating the evidence and blaming it on his employer would have let him burn. It would have been the neatest of all solutions. No witness, no loose ends.

But Sabe hadn't. He'd opted to rescue Anton, although it meant abandoning the site of his so-called crime, although it meant that he'd be the first suspect on the list.

Why?

The question hung in the hushed room, a negative image of the damning proof on the screen.

He returned to the laptop and closed the file. He couldn't stand to see it anymore. It was a hall of mirrors, and he was losing himself.

He opened a new, blank file. He headed it: Why He's Guilty. He began to list the points from the dossier, his fingers striking the keys with harsh, bitter slaps.

1. Financial motive (2M EUR).

2. Direct communication with brokers.

3. Fingerprint on ignition point.

4. History of operational failure/dishonor.

The list was brief, brutal, and all but conclusive.

He began a new list. Why He's Innocent.

His fingers hesitated over the keys. These were not forensic points. They were memory points. Instinct points. The kind of thing a lawyer would label sentiment, the irrational clinging of a bilked mark.

1. He saved me in the fire. (Crazy? A rational move to maintain cover?)

2. He didn't sell out and disappeared when Evelyn attempted to purchase him out. (Pride? An even greater play?)

3. The evidence is too perfect. (Paranoid?)

4. I trust him.

He stared at the fourth point. It was the weakest, most illogical piece of evidence imaginable. It was nothing. It was everything.

He had built his life on facts. On risk assessments, on account books, on harsh, cold facts. To make a decision of this magnitude—a decision that would determine a man's freedom and the fate of his own heart—on something as intangible as faith was madness.

He was Anton Rogers. He did not make decisions on faith.

But the server room guy, the floor guy in the safe house, was not a datum. He was a man. A human man, one who, in the face of all likelihood and against all reason, Anton had come to… 

Care for.

The thought, unformulated in his own mind, was appalling.

His phone buzzed. It was his head of security in London. “Sir, we’ve completed the internal audit. There’s no evidence of any other breaches. The fire appears to be an isolated, if catastrophic, event. The board is… restless. They’re asking for a statement. They want to know if you’re officially severing ties with Mr. Stalker.”

The pressure was a vise, clenching. The world held its breath to hear its judgment. The CEO within him saw the play: pretend to be shocked and appalled, condemn the rogue agent, and begin the long task of healing. It was a rational decision. The smart decision.

But the man who had felt Sabe's forehead against his shoulder, heard the tremble in his own voice as he thanked him, could not.

"No word," Anton stated, his voice hoarse. "Not yet."

"Sir, the media furor—"

"I don't care," Anton cut in, a swift, unshakable calm descending upon him. The storm within had passed, not because it had been resolved, but because he had made up his mind how to ride it out. "Reassign all assets. I want a thorough forensic audit on the forensics. I want to know who the 'known espionage broker' is.". I must be informed of the chain of custody on that fingerprint. I must tear their immaculate case asunder until I find the seam.

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. "Anton… respectfully, that's a sound a defense attorney would make."

"Building the truth," Anton said, his eyes fixing on the two lists on his screen. The short, grim list of facts, and the short, delicate list of faith.

He hung up the phone. The issue wasn't solved, but his course was set. He was making an unreasonable decision. He was choosing trust. He was gambling his company, his reputation, and whatever was left of his heart on the chance that the man he had fallen in love with was not a ghost, but the victim of an even more elaborate trick.

And if he erred, the fall would kill them both.

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