The interrogation suite was a windowless box of reinforced steel, smelling of industrial bleach and the unmistakable, metallic tang of fresh blood. On the central table lay the waiter from the gala, his face a pale, waxy blue. His body was rigid, caught in the final, agonizing spasm of a remote-triggered neurotoxin.
Julian Thorne stood by a glowing holographic terminal, his gold-rimmed spectacles reflecting a series of blinking red characters. He didn't look up when Caspian and Linnea entered; his fingers were flying across a virtual keyboard, trying to trace a signal that was already vanishing into the digital ether.
Caspian marched into the room, his presence shrinking the space. He didn't look at the body. He looked at the far wall. There, scrawled in thick, dark crimson, was a string of five numbers: 7 - 14 - 15 - 19 - 20.
"Explain," Caspian barked, his voice echoing like a gunshot.
Julian finally looked up, his gaze sliding past Caspian to fix on Linnea with a look of cold, intellectual triumph. "It's a simple A1Z26 substitution cipher, Commander. Crude, yet effective. If you translate the digits to their corresponding letters in the alphabet, it spells out a single word."
"G-H-O-S-T," Linnea whispered, the word feeling like ash in her mouth.
"Precisely," Julian said, tapping his stylus against the screen. "But it's the delivery method that interests me. This wasn't a suicide. Our 'waiter' had a microscopic receiver embedded in his molar. Someone sent a high-frequency pulse that ruptured a cyanide reservoir. They killed him to send a message. And they sent it to her."
Caspian turned slowly to look at Linnea. The heat from the training mat was gone, replaced by a terrifying, frozen stillness. He walked toward her, his shadow stretching across the blood-stained wall until it swallowed her whole.
"A ghost in my house," Caspian said, his voice dangerously quiet. "A phantom in my study. And now, a dead man writing your name in blood. Are you going to tell me this is part of your 'self-defense' curriculum, Linnea?"
Linnea felt the walls closing in. She knew that Julian was watching her micro-expressions, looking for the tell-tale flicker of a lie. She took a breath, forcing her heart rate to remain steady.
"If I were 'The Ghost,' Caspian," she said, her voice sounding hollow in the small room, "would I be stupid enough to let a low-level pawn blow my cover? Think like a strategist. If you wanted to destroy a man like Caspian Vane, you wouldn't just kill him. You'd isolate him. You'd make him execute the only person he's started to trust."
Caspian's hand shot out, his fingers bruising her chin as he forced her to look at the numbers on the wall. "The trust was part of the game, wasn't it? You let me touch you, let me 'spoil' you, all so you could get close enough to the encryption keys. Was Phase Three the plan all along?"
"Phase Three?" Linnea frowned, her confusion genuine.
Julian chimed in, his voice dripping with skepticism. "The waiter didn't just write. He spoke. We recovered a three-second audio burst from the receiver before it fried. Listen."
He pressed a button. A distorted, mechanical voice filled the room, sounding like gravel grinding against glass:
> "The Ghost is in the lion's den. The lion is eating from her hand. Phase Three begins at midnight."
>
The air in the room became suffocating. Caspian's grip on her chin tightened. "Midnight. That gives us exactly six hours before your friends arrive to finish the job. Is that when the 'pretty wife' opens the back door for the assassins?"
"It's a frame-up, Caspian!" Linnea yelled, finally letting her frustration break through the mask. "Look at the frequency of that audio burst! Julian, check the modulation. Is it an Eastern Bloc signal? Is it a Syndicate bounce?"
Julian hesitated, his fingers dancing over the tablet. "The encryption is high-level, but the carrier wave is... local." He paused, his brow furrowing behind his spectacles. "It's coming from an internal Federation relay. Specifically, the High Council's private server."
Caspian froze. He released Linnea, his mind shifting gears with the speed of a tactical computer. He looked at the blood on the wall, then at the data Julian was displaying.
"The High Council?" Caspian repeated. "They're the ones who forced this marriage on me."
"They wanted to 'stabilize' you, Commander," Linnea said, rubbing her bruised chin. "Or they wanted to place a target on your back. They used my father's debts to put me here, knowing that eventually, they could 'reveal' me as a spy and have a legal reason to remove the Northern Federation's most powerful Commander."
Caspian turned back to the screen, his eyes narrowing. The logic was sound. It was the kind of cold, political play he dealt with every day. But it didn't fully clear Linnea.
"If you're telling the truth," Caspian said, "then you're being used as a sacrificial lamb. If you're lying, you're the most brilliant actress I've ever encountered."
"Why not both?" Julian suggested, his eyes glinting. "She could be 'The Ghost,' and the Council could be trying to burn her. A double-cross within a double-cross."
Caspian looked at Linnea—really looked at her. He saw the fire in her eyes, the raw, unyielding strength that no "spoiled wife" should possess. He realized then that he didn't just want to possess her; he wanted to unleash her. If she was a weapon, he wanted to be the one pulling the trigger.
"Julian," Caspian ordered, his voice taking on the resonance of command. "Trace that signal back to the specific terminal in the Council chambers. Don't leave a footprint."
"And the Lady?" Julian asked, gesturing to Linnea.
Caspian walked over to a locker at the back of the room. He punched in a code and pulled out a sleek, matte-black sidearm—a Federation pulse-pistol. He checked the power cell and handed it to Linnea, handle-first.
"If Phase Three begins at midnight," Caspian said, his gray eyes locking onto hers, "I want my wife ready to greet it. You said you wanted to protect your territory, Linnea. This house is your territory now. Show me how a ghost hunts."
Linnea took the weapon, the weight of it familiar and grounding. She felt Julian's gaze on her, sharp and suspicious, but for the first time, she felt Caspian's trust—or at least, his curiosity.
"Midnight," Linnea whispered, checking the sights. "I hope they're ready to see a ghost."