Chapter 1079 Tracking
While Gerald waited for Sasha to make progress on his task, he felt as though he were sweating bullets, cold ones, icy as popsicles. His worry for Dave gnawed at him, and fear of how their Young Miss would react weighed heavily on him. This was the first time he had ever heard her so silent.
Even when she had been wheelchair-bound or cornered in Parish, she had always kept giving them instructions, relentless and commanding. But now... she was cold, distant, and unyielding, and even through the phone, Gerald felt her presence pressing down on him. It was as if he had been suddenly locked in a freezing cellar, slowly turning into a block of ice.
Although Gerald wanted to urge Sasha to hurry, he couldn’t speak. First, he didn’t want to disturb him. Second, it felt as if an invisible hand were pressing against his throat, silencing him completely. He could only remain still and quiet.
He couldn’t even make sense of what was happening on Sasha’s screen. The display was mostly black, scrolling rapidly with lines he couldn’t read. From the movement alone, he could tell Sasha was attempting to hack into something, but what exactly, Gerald had no idea. The prompts Sasha typed were indecipherable to him, leaving him in tense uncertainty.
Even Sasha felt the pressure mounting. It had already been more than an hour since Dave was abducted, and with his special status, countless things could have happened in that time. Beads of sweat formed on Sasha’s forehead as he expanded the search radius from 100 miles to 1,000 miles around the city.
The abductors could be anything: a local mafia faction, an international syndicate, or even a political opposition. With so many possibilities, Sasha focused first on the suburban routes, reasoning they were the most likely paths: faster, less congested, and easier for smuggling someone undetected.
At the same time, there was still a five percent chance the abductors might take the city route. Though riskier, the urban environment offered advantages like vehicles could be swapped quickly on flyovers or underpasses, and the sheer number of cars made it easier to use decoys and evade pursuers while transporting Dave. Every second counted, and the complexity of the situation only made Sasha’s task more urgent.
Thinking through all of this, Sasha felt the pressure of time closing in. He had performed this kind of tracking before, like when Hera had rescued Rafael and Minerva in the forest, but this situation was far more complex.
There was no clear suspect, only millions of possibilities to consider. He had no way of knowing what mindset their enemies might be operating under, which made every decision feel like a race against the clock.
For example, if the abductors were part of a political faction opposed to Dave, they would likely be cautious but also bolder, knowing they had government support and could exploit numerous loopholes. In that case, it was possible they might hide in the city center, after all, sometimes hiding in plain sight was the hardest place to be found.
If, however, the abductors were part of an international syndicate, they would do everything possible to vanish without a trace. They would favor uninhabited roads, abandoned locations, or places like piers and deserted airstrips, using them to smuggle the victim out of the country or make a quick getaway.
On the other hand, if the abductors belonged to a domestic mafia faction, they would most likely retreat to their hideouts or other well-hidden safe houses. Many of these locations were equipped with signal jammers, making it extremely difficult to track anyone using conventional devices. In some cases, even satellite surveillance might prove ineffective.
With all these factors to consider, Sasha had to make his mind work like a supercomputer, calculating probabilities from millions of possibilities as quickly as he could. His goal was to narrow down the potential routes and pinpoint Dave’s location, knowing full well that the surveillance coverage was far from complete, no matter how hard he tried.
And now he realized there was a skilled hacker working on the opposing side, actively trying to erase any trace of the abduction. That’s why he couldn’t rely solely on the satellite footage of the road where Dave was taken. While the hacker hadn’t completely deleted the footage, he had blurred it enough to make the black armored car almost vanish in the darkness.
During the drive, the vehicle hadn’t used any headlights except for the brief moment it attacked Dave’s SUV and forced it to flip. This was likely a calculated move because using light would have made it easier to track them via satellite, but by avoiding using the headlights, the car blended seamlessly into the night. It was highly probable that the abductors were using night-vision goggles to navigate safely.
"Tsk." Sasha clicked his tongue, annoyance flickering across his face, though his eyes burned with determination. He refused to lose to such petty tricks, which in his view were beneath him.
"Just a minute. The enemy on the other side sent a hacker to erase the tracks," he said. "I’ll need some time to clean up the surveillance and enhance every image; it won’t be quick. But while I do that, I’m already calculating probabilities so we can deploy our people along likely routes. Until I have the full surveillance, we won’t know the exact path the enemy took after abducting the Young Minister."
He reported this to Hera, his tone sharp and precise.
"How long will it take?" Hera asked, her voice cold and sharp. Everyone could feel the edge in her tone, even Zhane, Rafael, and Luke sensed her anger, and none of them dared speak.
Their eyes, however, betrayed their worry, as if she might act recklessly despite her condition. Unlike the past, when she had rushed to rescue Rafael, Minerva, or Leo, she was now bound to her wheelchair, unable to stand properly. All they could do was hope they were overthinking it, and that she wouldn’t try to go after Dave on her own.
"Young Miss, based on my calculations, it will take at least fifteen minutes to clean up the footage. Once it’s done, I’ll send you the exact coordinates. For now, I’ve narrowed it down to thirteen possible routes the abductors could have taken from the road they were on."
"One leads to a small harbor, another to an abandoned private airport, there’s an underground tunnel connected to the old railway, a mountain villa, an abandoned waterpark, a private bar... and several others. I’ve sent the full list to you, you can start checking these locations first."
Sasha clicked ’Enter’, and immediately Hera’s device buzzed. The message contained the pinned locations of all the suspected hideouts. Her teams could now head straight to those points.
It had already been over an hour since the abduction, so it was highly likely the kidnappers had reached their destinations. Hopefully, they weren’t too late, especially for the routes leading to the harbor or airport, because once Dave left the country, finding him would be far more difficult.
"I understand," Hera said, pausing for a moment before addressing Gerald. "Gerald, inform Cindy to get the same team ready, have them disperse and head to the pinned locations immediately."
She was referring to the veterans who had accompanied her during Leo’s rescue, who were former military elites who didn’t need instructions for an extraction mission. When Zhane, Luke, and Rafael heard that Hera was sending her team instead of going herself, they all let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Hera, however, felt a mix of frustration and impatience. She was furious, but not reckless; she knew her limits. If she forced herself to go now, she’d only slow the operation or risk compromising it. So, all she could do was wait for updates. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she stared at her phone, the frustration making her feel even more antsy.
But she knew there was nothing she could do right now except coordinate with her team. Gerald, hearing Hera’s order, didn’t hesitate and immediately contacted Cindy. Using the landline so he wouldn’t have to end his call with Hera, he left his phone beside Sasha’s desk as he made the call.
Cindy, already sensing that something urgent was happening, was on standby. By the time Gerald connected with her, she and her team were fully ready. They quickly split into thirteen teams, each assigned to one of the pinned locations to ensure nothing was missed.
All teams boarded helicopters, and to avoid alerting their enemies, they prepared to parachute silently onto their respective sites, ready to strike with precision.
Because the mission was time‑sensitive, everyone moved with urgency.
While Hera remained on the phone with Gerald and the others, Rafael contacted his company to ensure that news of Dave’s abduction would not leak. If word got out, other factions could exploit the situation to stir public unrest, and Dave’s political opponents might seize the opportunity to take control.