The Signal and the Noise
The "toys" Virginia Lance had pulled from her designer handbag didn't look like much—a pair of sleek, matte-black earbuds and a high-end tablet—but the software inside was a specialized "Frequency Sniffer" used by deep-cover intelligence teams.
"It doesn't just look for signals, Miller," Virginia explained, her voice low and clinical as she tapped the screen. "It looks for the absence of noise. If a room is too quiet, it means there's a vacuum-seal encryption running. It finds the 'Black Holes' in a network."
Vane leaned in, impressed despite himself. "And you want to send this into Villa 4?"
"Not me," Virginia smiled, a sharp, dangerous glint in her eyes. "We're sending in a 'Hospitality Specialist.' Someone Mr. Montague won't look twice at."
Ten minutes later, a young man named Thomas, dressed in the crisp white linens of the Blue Serene room-service staff, pushed a mahogany trolley toward the entrance of Villa 4. Tucked into his breast pocket was a "thermal sensor"
disguised as a pencil, and the silver tray he carried was lined with a conductive mesh that acted as a mobile antenna.
He knocked softly. "Room service."
The door opened slowly. Sebastian Montague III stood there, looking, for a long moment, as if he were wary of strangers. He stepped back with a smile, gesturing for Thomas to enter.
"Just put it by the window," Sebastian said, his voice weary. "I had been looking forward to this, but I thought it would be canceled due to that... business. How is Mr. Tucker?"
As Thomas placed the chilled gazpacho and artisan bread on the table, the "Sniffer" in his pocket was working at a furious pace. It swept the room, looking for the mirrored terminal Vane had mentioned, looking for any sign of a digital nest.
Outside, in the War Room, Miller and Vane watched the data stream in.
"I'm getting a reading," Vane whispered. "Wait… no. That's just the standard resort Wi-Fi. It's clean. The whole room is clean."
"What about the HVAC sub-routine?" Miller asked.
"Negative. It's showing as a dead node. The signal we saw earlier? It's gone. It's like the system reset itself the moment Thomas crossed the threshold."
Thomas finished the setup, spoke politely for a bit more, then offered a polite nod and exited the villa. The moment the door clicked shut, the tablet in Virginia's hand pulsed red, then settled into a steady, mocking green.
"He's not in there," Miller muttered, staring at the screen. "Or if he is, he's running on analog. There isn't so much as a Bluetooth speaker active in that room."
"It's more than that," Virginia said, her eyes narrowing at the floor plan. "Look at the outdoor reading Thomas got on his way out. There's a signal bleed coming from the neighboring villa, Villa 5. And it's the same signature as the London ping."
Miller stood up. "So Villa 4 was a decoy. He hid his trail by drawing our eyes to Montague, but the real hardware is sitting in an empty unit next door."
Vane shrugged. "At this point i don't even know. This may have been set up weeks or months ago. This Anthony Shaw character may have been the one who did all this and it's just being found. Perhaps you should gp over that other villa with a fine toothed comb, before a new guest checks in."
Virginia and Miller bristled as one. Virginia narrowed her eyes as she looked at the readouts. "Well you two better find out exactly what is going on."
Back in Villa 4, Sebastian sat by the window, staring out at the lake. He didn't touch the gazpacho. He looked at the empty space where his "toys" used to be, now tucked away in the secret lab across town. He had known the "Sniffer" was coming. He had felt the shift in the air when the "hospitality specialist" arrived.
He smiled. They were looking at Villa 5 now. They were chasing the "Noise" he had left behind like a trail of breadcrumbs.
"It's almost time, Amber," he whispered to the crystal-clear blue lake. He smiled, imagining Amber in a soft green pencil-line dress, her belly softly protruding, and the brooch he made for her prominent on her shoulder. "Soon, my love. Soon we will be together forever. No one can stop it this time."
At the Trace-Progressive offices, Elena, Mary, and Edward were in the middle of tackling the mail pickup. They had started with the correspondence and left all the packaging for last. Edward pushed over the cart of packages and exhaled dramatically. "Lunch will be here soon."
He paused, a small, expensive package catching his eye. "This looks expensive. Oh, it's for Mrs. Lance-Trace." He turned the beautifully wrapped package over in his hands. "Someone had this specially wrapped, and look at the calligraphy." Excitement was inching its way into his voice.
Elena looked up with a frown and looked at the package. "I can't believe I missed that." She took the small package from Edward and her eyebrows rose as she felt the weight of it. She took out her phone and called Amber's assistant. "Hey, Alice. I got a package for Mrs. Lance-Trace in the Trace-Progressive PO Box. Can I courier it to you, or would you like me to bring it over later today? Okay. See you later then."
The call disconnected and Amber looked to Alice. "Anything important?"
"No. A package came for you in one of their PO Boxes."
"Oh. I will just tell Dan to bring it when he comes home."
And like that, Dan Trace had gotten a small, expensive-looking package addressed to his wife. He was trying not to be jealous as he looked at it on his desk. He had stopped himself from opening it a dozen times already, and he could sense he was losing the battle.
He sighed and tried to focus on his tasks. He did not want Amber opening whatever it was at dinner tonight. As he started working, his mind wandered again. Maybe he should have Samuel look at it. Who would send Amber such a thing through the Trace-Progressive PO Box?