Chapter 23
Mateo stepped away from the workbench, his body shifting into a relaxed, lethal stance.
"Who is your employer?" Mateo asked, his voice calm and sharp.
The man set the metal briefcase onto an old oil drum, clicking open the dual combination locks.
"Your father didn't just invent one hybrid patent twenty years ago, Captain," the stranger revealed softly.
Inside the briefcase lay a faded, hand-drawn blueprint bearing his father's signature, dated just three days before his supposed death.
Beside the blueprint rested an encrypted satellite phone that suddenly began ringing with an urgent incoming signal.
Mateo stared at the glowing caller ID on the phone screen—it displayed an old family nickname that only his father had ever called him.
"Answer it, Mateo," the man whispered, stepping back toward his dark sedan.
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"Your father has been waiting ten years to tell you the truth about why he had to disappear."
Mateo reached out his trembling hand, his fingers touching the cold glass of the ringing phone as the heavy silence of the workshop hung in the balance.
