Chapter 94: Room 1201

By seven-thirty Thursday evening, the Grand Veridia Hotel was glowing under crystal chandeliers.

Down on the ground floor, wealthy merchants and visiting officials moved through the marble lobby toward the hotel’s private banquet dining room.

Standing near the tall floral arrangement in the dining room foyer, a young woman in a tailored charcoal blazer and dark trousers held a small leather folder against her chest.

Her silver-ash hair was pinned up neatly, and her violet eyes were calm. In the inside pocket of her blazer was a slim, encrypted smartphone that Mikay had set up for her earlier that afternoon.

At exactly seven-fifty-five, the lobby elevator doors chimed open.

Senior Auditor Jonathan Meles stepped out into the foyer, flanked by two plainclothes federal marshals. He wore an expensive dark suit, adjusting his silk tie as he walked toward the private dining room.

Zephyra timed her steps.

As Meles turned the corner of the foyer corridor, Zephyra stepped briskly out of the adjacent lounge doorway.

BUMP.

Zephyra stumbled back half a step, dropping her leather folder onto the floor. Several hotel brochures and blank note sheets scattered across the tiles.

"Watch where you’re going," Meles snapped, brushing his sleeve in annoyance.

"I am so sorry, sir!" Zephyra gasped in a polite, flustered voice.

In her right hand, she was carrying a clean, heavy glass tumbler from the water station. As she bent down to scoop up her papers, she looked up with wide, apologetic eyes and held the glass toward him.

"Could you hold this for one second, please? I’m so clumsy," she pleaded softly.

Meles’s instinctive reaction took over. Without thinking, his right hand shot out and gripped the tumbler firmly so it wouldn’t fall.

His right thumb pressed flat against the smooth crystal surface.

In that exact same second, Zephyra knelt down.

With her left hand, she gathered the papers. With her right hand, moving with the silent precision of a professional assassin, her fingers brushed against the open slit of Meles’s jacket pocket.

Her fingertips caught the edge of his magnetic keycard.

With a quick pull, the plastic card slid out of his pocket and vanished into her blazer sleeve without a whisper of sound.

"Here, let me take that," Zephyra said, standing up quickly.

She took the glass tumbler back, carefully holding it by the top rim so she wouldn’t smudge the glass.

"Thank you so much, sir. Again, my apologies," she murmured, lowering her head politely.

"Careless girl," Meles scoffed under his breath as he adjusted his jacket lapels and walked straight into the private banquet room to meet his guests.

Behind him, Zephyra turned on her heel and walked calmly toward the service exit.

Two minutes later, she was in the concrete stairwell. She looked at the magnetic keycard in her hand. Embossed in gold foil on the plastic was the room number: 1201.

She placed the glass tumbler carefully inside a padded velvet pouch from her pocket. Then, she pulled out a strip of clear forensic silicone lifting tape.

Working under the dim stairwell bulb, she peeled the backing off the tape. She pressed the adhesive firmly against the oily thumbprint on the tumbler, rubbing it smoothly with her thumb pad before peeling it off.

The ridge patterns of Meles’s right thumb were captured with total clarity.

Zephyra pocketed the glass and climbed the stairs.

Reaching the twelfth floor, she pushed the fire door open an inch.

The penthouse corridor was covered in thick crimson carpet. Standing directly in front of Suite 1201 was a broad-shouldered federal marshal in a dark suit, his arms crossed over his chest.

Zephyra pulled back into the stairwell shadows.

She couldn’t knock him out. If a federal marshal was found unconscious outside Meles’s door, the entire hotel would go on lockdown within five minutes.

She reached for the slim phone Mikay had given her, opened the dialer and entered the hotel concierge’s direct line before pressing it to her ear.

"Grand Veridia Concierge, how may I assist you?" a polite voice answered.

Zephyra spoke in a calm, urgent voice. "This is Room Twelve-Zero-Eight down the hall. Someone is rattling the lock on the north emergency fire exit. It sounds like they’re trying to force the door open from the stairwell."

"We’ll have floor security check it immediately, ma’am!"

Zephyra ended the call and slipped the phone into her blazer.

Five seconds later, a radio chirped on the marshal’s shoulder.

"Marshal Kane, front desk. A guest in Twelve-Zero-Eight reported someone tampering with the north fire exit door. Can you take a look?"

"Copy that," the marshal replied. "Checking the north exit now."

He uncrossed his arms and began walking down the hallway toward the far corner.

The instant the marshal turned the corridor corner, Zephyra moved. She crossed thirty feet of hallway like a dark gust of wind, making zero sound on the carpet. She swiped the gold keycard through the reader on door 1201.

BEEP.

A green light flashed. The lock clicked.

Zephyra pushed the door open, slipped inside the dark suite, and closed the door behind her.

Total time elapsed: three seconds.

The penthouse suite was silent and smelled of expensive cologne and cedarwood.

Zephyra didn’t turn on any lights. Her night-adapted assassin eyes navigated the room effortlessly in the pale moonlight coming through the sheer curtains.

She walked straight into the private executive study.

Resting in the center of the dark mahogany desk was Meles’s black leather briefcase. Zephyra pulled the silicone lifting strip from her pocket.

Beside the heavy brass latch, the circular glass sensor sat flush with the leather. She carefully aligned the silicone print directly over the glass circle, pressing her own thumb against the back of the tape to supply body heat.

BEEP.

A bright emerald light pulsed beneath the sensor.

CLICK.

The twin side-tumblers disengaged, and the briefcase lid popped open.

Zephyra lifted the lid.

Inside was a series of neat leather dividers. She flipped past the initial stack of Apex banking records and pulled out the thick red-tabbed folder underneath.

The first document inside made her eyes narrow.

IMPERIAL HIGH COURT ASSET CONFISCATION DECREE #809

It was the official court seizure decree for Apex Sovereign Conglomerate. It already bore Senior Auditor Jonathan Meles’s signature and the red wax seal of the High Court.

Zephyra looked down at the bottom margin.

Printed right beneath the automated barcode was the electronic docket timestamp from the Capital:

REGISTERED AT CENTRAL JUDICIAL REGISTRY: WEDNESDAY, 9:15 AM.

Wednesday morning.

Meles had registered the final seizure order in the Capital before he even boarded the train to Veridia, and twenty-four hours before he ever handed Evren the audit notice. The forty-eight-hour clock was a complete lie.

Zephyra flipped to the next document.

It was a binding commercial contract titled: EXCLUSIVE ASSET ASSIGNMENT & LIQUIDATION TRANSFER AGREEMENT.

According to the terms, upon the execution of Decree #809, all of Apex’s Sector One mining rights, Sector Two deep-water docks, and five heavy smelting foundries would be transferred immediately to the Caldwell Imperial Mining Consortium for a token liquidation price of twenty-five million dollars.

At the bottom of the page was the signature of Brandon Caldwell’s personal proxy in the Capital.

Zephyra flipped to the final sheet.

It was an offshore escrow deposit receipt from the Iron-Vault Trust in the Capital, confirming a wire transfer of $5,000,000.00 USD into Meles’s private foreign account.

Printed clearly in the memo field were the release instructions:

FUNDS RELEASEABLE CONTINGENT UPON OFFICIAL EXECUTION OF HIGH COURT DECREE #809.

A cold smile touched Zephyra’s lips.

She pulled out Mikay’s phone and tapped the forensic document scanner app.

Holding the phone steady over the desk, she took high-resolution scans of every single page. The camera captured the holographic watermarks, the registry barcodes, the signatures, and the escrow account numbers with razor sharpness.

PING.

A soft green checkmark appeared on the phone screen:

[ENCRYPTED UPLOAD COMPLETE — 12 FILES SYNCED TO CLOUD]

Zephyra placed the folders back into the briefcase in their exact order. She shut the leather lid firmly until the lock snapped shut with a dull metallic CLICK.

She pulled a microfiber cloth from her pocket and wiped the circular glass sensor clean.

Checking the corridor through the door’s peephole, she waited until the hallway was clear. She slipped out into the carpeted hall, letting the door lock behind her.

Taking the stairs down to the ground floor, she walked back into the dining room foyer.

As she passed the entrance to Meles’s private booth, she dropped the gold keycard onto the carpet near the waiter’s stand. A busboy noticed it two seconds later, picking it up to return it to the guest.

Zephyra walked out the hotel’s revolving glass doors and stepped into the cool evening air.