Chapter 97 - The Archduke's Cipher
I stepped over Rostova’s collapsing body and shoved a portable data drive into the submarine's primary terminal.
The screens flickered frantically as Liam initiated an emergency handshake with the vessel's internal servers. Lines of encrypted green code streamed across the glass, reflecting in Mia's wide, intelligent eyes.
"Mom," Mia pointed a small finger at the screen. "That’s not the Vance family crest. Look at the seal."
She was right. The symbol burned onto the terminal wasn't Arthur’s stylized dragon. It was an ancient, black sun entwined with a twin-headed serpent—the long-forgotten sigil of the Archduke Syndicate, an ultra-clandestine cartel of European central bankers thought to have been dissolved eighty years ago.
"Arthur Vance wasn't running Obsidian," I realized, the blood running cold in my veins. "He was merely their public scapegoat. When I humiliated him in London and dismantled his holdings, they used him to draw my fleet away from the mainland."
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"Mom!" Liam’s voice became urgent, distorted by heavy atmospheric interference. "The sovereign networks are facing a simultaneous liquidity squeeze! Someone is dumping four hundred billion dollars in sovereign bonds across the Asian and European markets simultaneously! It's a synchronized economic execution!"
"Extract now!" I ordered. "Get Mia to the primary gunship! Leo, prepare the orbital uplink. If they want a war of total economic annihilation, we will give them one."
