Adam sat cross-legged on the floor of the derelict Riad. He was cleaning his gun—a compact Glock 17 he had acquired from a smuggler in the port.
The news on his laptop confirmed the panic. The media was calling it "The Ghost Killer." The police were ramping up patrols.
But Adam was calm.
Flashback: Guangzhou, China. Year 11.A cyber-warfare den, lit only by the blue glow of monitors. A hacker named 'Viper' teaches Adam. "The world is data," Viper says, typing furiously. "Cameras, phones, license plates. To hide, you must feed the machine false information." Adam watches, learning to loop footage, to clone signals, to be a ghost in the machine.
Adam typed on his laptop. He accessed the traffic cameras outside Karim's villa in the Marshan district. He looped the footage, creating a five-minute window of blindness.
He looked at the map of the villa. High walls. Armed guards. Dogs.
He couldn't just walk in the front door.
He stood up and went to the small bag he had brought from the ship. He pulled out a glass jar containing a thick, dark paste. It was a mixture he had learned to make in the jungle of Vietnam—a concentrated pheromone paste that confused tracking dogs. It smelled like rotting meat to them, overpowering everything else.
He packed his gear. Tonight, he would visit the monster's lair.
But first, he had to send a message.
He logged into a secure email server. He created a new account: [email protected].
He attached a photo of the crime scene at the port—the ash on Hamid's body.
He sent it to one address: [email protected].
Let the hunt begin.