Chapter 16 - The Trap at Altamar
The school was empty.
Police confirmed it within minutes.
Mateo wanted panic.
He got something else.
No more private containment.
No more protecting Altamar’s reputation.
At 2:11 a.m., investigators released enough information to freeze North Cascade accounts in Luxembourg.
Isabel finally lost her composure.
“You are destroying the company to save it.”
Clara agreed to cooperate fully.
She turned over twelve years of off-book instructions, including messages from Mateo and Isabel directing her to preserve “parallel language” in selected transactions.
One message stood out.
ALBA EVENT MAY FORCE ELENA OUT OF HIDING.
Dated six months earlier.
Alba looked at her mother. “They planned for me to come here.”
Elena shook her head. “Not exactly.”
They had engineered the interpreter’s emergency.
Then someone sent Elena a message saying Altamar urgently needed a Mandarin interpreter.
Elena had sent Alba because she feared walking into a trap herself.
Mateo had predicted that.
The entire morning had been designed to flush Elena out.
But he had underestimated Alba.
“He expected you to deliver the envelope and leave,” Álvaro said.
“Instead she translated the clause,” Javier replied.
For once, Alba looked proud.
Then IT reported an attempted remote deletion of Server B12.
The command came from inside the building.
Police locked every floor.
A technician traced the signal to a storage room behind the executive kitchen.
They opened it.
One of Mateo’s missing security officers was inside, unconscious but alive.
Beside him sat a laptop running the deletion script.
The other officer was gone.
May you like
On the screen, the progress bar read 78 percent.
And still climbing.
