THE RETURN Of the LEGENDARY KING of WAR

Beneath The Silence

Rain still tapped the windows along with the tick of the clock but Andrew stood frozen, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. His mind was rattled, this was definitely something and the empty spot where the car had been was a clue.

He stared at the empty spot where the car had been minutes ago, its absence leaving a deep pain in his heart.

“I can't believe all of this." He ran his hands over his face in disbelief as a surge of fury exploded in his chest as he turned and punched the nearest wall, the sharp pain grounding him just enough.

“Goddammit,” he muttered, punching out a number on his smart military watch and dialing Mason's number.

It rang once. Twice.

“Mason here,” came the familiar voice.

“I need you. Now. At Verizon. I think we’ve had a breach.”

Silence for a second.

“Breach?” He stalled for a minute. " What kind of breach?”

“The kind I can't explain yet. But someone was here. I saw the shadow on the hallway feed. And now… nothing. They’re gone. I need you to lock down everything,top to bottom.”

“I’m on my way.” Mason chimed in.

Andrew hung up and paced the hall like a storm waiting to break. His mind replayed the moment at the monitor, he should have known all this was a plot.

At that moment, the instinct screamed at him. And that… feeling. Like whoever had been in that office wasn’t just snooping.

They were targeting something. Or someone.

Maybe even him.

Mason arrived within the hour, drenched and agitated. He didn’t bother with greetings as Andrew led him into the surveillance room where a few guards had arrived, and were standing astonished and scared witless.

“Run back the footage. Right here,” Andrew said, pointing at the feed from the executive wing. “Just before midnight. There's something there.”

Mason’s fingers danced across the controls, scrubbing through time-stamped video. The image blurred, paused, rewound. And then…there, it was. A shadow slipping through the hallway, barely visible.

Definitely feminine, but who?

“Shit,” Mason muttered.

“Told you.” Andrew leaned over his shoulder. “Look at the movement, at first I thought it was one of the workers, but no!” He bellowed icily, the intensity of his voice rattling off the walls.

“Could be one of ours off duty, forgot to clock out,” Mason offered, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

Andrew spun back to face Mason, face drawn into an angry tight line.

“I want every one of them guards questioned. Check the logs. The gates. Every single badge swipe.”

“Already on it.” Mason replies, leading them away.

Within hours, security staff were pulled in. None reported anything suspicious. No missing badges, Nothing was taken. No signs of forced entry. On the surface, everything felt normal.

Andrew was pacing to and fro when they report got to him, he had this intense look on his face, one that whispered the fact that he knew between.

Especially not with a shadow slipping through.

“So are you telling me that nothing was found?” He asked, looking in the distance where the car had been the night before, that same familiar car.

"Nothing boss.” Mason replies.

"Crap!” Andrew cussed.

"We have to get to the end of this! We have to… Get the car ready!”

*****

Two days had passed since the incident at the Verizon, and while it was now a faint memory, it wasn't forgotten

Still nothing had been found, at least nothing than the blur of shadow in the camera—

By the third day, still nothing, but Andrew wasn't relenting; he wanted answers.

At the moment, the two were in a private conversation about the same situation.

Mason was getting frustrated. “We’ve swept every room, checked every guard’s background twice, scrubbed every log. There’s nothing here. Maybe it was just an insight.”

Andrew shot him a glare, furious but keeping his cool.“You and I both know this is not an insight.”

Mason held his hands up. “I’m not saying we drop it. Just… maybe take a breather. Whoever it was, they’re gone.”

Andrew didn’t answer. He stared through the office window, down at the lot where the car had been. Where it had vanished. His gut told him something was still here.

Something everyone else had missed.

****

On the fifth day, the call came from maintenance.

Andrew had just stepped into his home office when Mason buzzed him. “Sir, a janitor, Thomas is here. He said he found something you might want to see.”

“Send him in.” He muttered.

A small-framed man in coveralls entered the room, nervously clutching a clear plastic evidence pouch.

Andrew took one look, and felt a sharp pull in his chest. A flash fucking drive!

“Where did you find this?” he asked, voice tight.

“Uh—under the desk in the CEO suite, sir. Cleaning up the floor mats. It was jammed near the wall. Thought maybe someone dropped it.”

Andrew took the pouch and nodded. “Thank you. You’ve done well.”

As the janitor left, Andrew locked the office door behind him, and took a seat at his desk.

For a long moment, he just stared at the drive.

He didn’t trust plugging it into his network—he couldn't risk it. It could be an anti-bug for all he knew, so he pulled out a secure offline laptop from his private drawer and slid the drive into place.

A soft beep… and then, the screen came to life.

Folders blinked open. A directory auto-launched.

FILE NAME:

Internal Verizon Access: Project Dust

He clicked.

Dozens of names popped up. Employees. Former partners. Internal reports. Some redacted.

But then—he saw his own name.

MARK ANDREW – CLASSIFIED RECORD

He clicked.

And froze.

There, in black and white, were documents not even Mason knew about. His early career. Details from a sealed military operation. Assets under his private account. A list of verbal conversations he’d had in confidence inside this very building.

There were even two photographs of his younger self during a time he’d worked under a different alias.

His blood ran cold.

He stood back up, his chair scraping against the polished floor, and paced through the room. There was nothing normal about this, but it there anything that ran through his mind, was two questions:

Who the hell had this?

And worse, why?!