Chương 73 - The Digital Siege
Within twenty-hours of the incident in Palo Alto, Damian Vance and Viktor touched down at San Francisco International Airport aboard a private Gulfstream jet. They moved with the cold, calculated precision of seasoned veterans who refused to let anyone threaten their family again.
Marcus met them inside a secure safehouse in downtown San Francisco, his laptop open on a stainless steel table, displaying complex server architectures and real-time network traffic logs.
"They aren't just sending thugs to stalk me on campus," Marcus explained, pointing rapidly at a series of cascading data streams on his monitor. "Rostov’s technical cell is launching a coordinated, distributed denial-of-service attack against the foundation’s primary data nodes in Zurich. They're trying to wipe our financial reserves and frame us for corporate fraud."
Viktor leaned over the console, his massive arms crossed over his chest, his eyes scanning the scrolling code. "Can they breach the core vault, kid?"
"Not yet," Marcus replied confidently. "I reinforced the encryption ciphers using the architecture I developed during my thesis. But they're probing every firewall for a structural weakness. If we don't trace their physical relay server and shut them down at the source, they'll eventually punch through."
Damian stepped forward, placing a heavy, reassuring hand on Marcus’s shoulder. "Then trace them. Find out where Rostov is hiding, and let's go pay our dear old friend a visit."
For the next six hours, Marcus worked with relentless, hyper-focused brilliance. He injected a recursive tracking loop into the incoming attack packets, bouncing the signal across international proxy servers from Frankfurt to the Swiss Alps.
Suddenly, a bright red coordinate marker flashed across the digital map on the center screen.
"Got him," Marcus whispered, a triumphant smile breaking across his face. "The physical relay is hosted out of an abandoned data bunker beneath an upscale villa in the Swiss canton of Zug."
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Damian smirked, a cold, dangerous light dancing in his eyes. "Pack your gear, gentlemen. We're going to Switzerland."
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