The van was parked a few blocks away from the hotel, tucked between two quiet service roads where it would not easily draw attention.
Inside, the space was dim and filled with the low hum of running equipment.
Niel sat in the driver’s-side workstation, fingers moving steadily across the keyboard as multiple feeds and data streams flickered across his screen.
His focus did not waver, eyes scanning lines of information with practiced precision as he coordinated the ongoing surveillance setup.
Beside him, Linn had her eyes closed, hands loosely clasped together.
She was murmuring something under her breath, her expression unusually serious.
Niel eventually paused, his typing slowing as he noticed the quiet movement beside him.
He turned his head slightly and looked at her, eyebrows lifting a little as if trying to process what he was seeing.
Linn kept her eyes closed for a moment longer before finally opening them, catching his stare.
She gave him a disapproving frown.
“Can you stop judging me?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Praying.”
She rolled her eyes at him and went back to her praying.
He stared at her for a few seconds, then went back to typing, shaking his head a little.
“What exactly are you praying for?”
“That I do not get deployed on the field.”
He stopped typing immediately and turned his head toward her again.
“…That is your prayer?”
She nodded once, very serious.
He stared at her like he was recalculating reality, then went back to typing again, letting out a quiet laugh under his breath.
“Request denied, the HR says.”
She frowned, eyes still closed.
“There is no HR.”
“There is now.”
She groaned and leaned back in her seat, letting her head rest against the back support as if the conversation had already exhausted her entire will to participate.
“You cannot deploy me. I did not even listen properly during the meeting.”
Niel did not look up from his screen.
His fingers continued moving across the keyboard, finishing whatever sequence he was working on.
“You listened enough.”
“I did not. I swear.”
That was when he casually reached the side and picked up a thin folder resting beside the keyboard.
Without much ceremony, he tossed it lightly toward her.
She caught it mid-air, blinking at him in confusion.
“What is this?”
“You said you did not listen,” he replied as he continued working.
She opened the folder and scanned the first page.
The moment her eyes landed on the name and photo, her expression shifted slightly.
Adrian Mercer.
Billionaire businessman and CEO of Mercer Holdings Group.
His name alone already carried weight in global circles, the kind that made people adjust their tone without realizing it.
Her eyes moved across the basic profile—luxury infrastructure projects, international logistics, energy investments, and government-linked developments.
On paper, Mercer looked like someone operating at the center of multiple industries without ever directly exposing himself to scrutiny.
She frowned slightly as she continued reading, her earlier complaints fading into the background.
She realized, somewhat reluctantly, that she had actually listened during the meeting more than she wanted to admit.
The details were there in her mind—fragmented, but present—and they were now aligning with what she was seeing on the page.
“Does he actually have ties to Zeropoint?”
“That is what this operation is meant to confirm.”
Her eyes landed on Mercer’s photograph.
Calm expression, composed posture, the kind of face that belonged in press conferences and official statements.
Nothing about it suggested what Crossline suspected underneath all of it.
“So he rarely appears in public?”
“Most of his dealings go through representatives or private channels. Makes him difficult to track.”
Her gaze drifted toward the window beside her.
From where the van was parked, the hotel tower stood clearly against the skyline, its glass exterior reflecting the city below.
Elegant and expensive.
And somewhere inside that building, a suspected exchange was set to take place between Mercer and a Zeropoint intermediary.
The stakeout objective was actually simple.
Confirm identity.
Confirm exchange content.
No engagement unless extraction was necessary.
Her fingers tightened slightly in her lap as the hotel tower loomed in the distance, the thought pressing in before she could stop it—simple for them, but was she actually ready for this, and would she even make it back alive?
Just then, a faint static crackled through the comms before Jayden’s voice came through, low and composed.
“Chaconne. Surveillance node secured. Relay ready.”
Inside the hotel’s surveillance room, one of the security staff lay unconscious near the corner wall, half-hidden behind the desk consoles.
Jayden barely spared him a glance as he slid into the operator’s chair, a compact device already connected to the system ports beneath the monitors. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
Multiple camera feeds flickered across the screens in front of him—lobby entrances, exits, elevators, hallways, parking levels.
He adjusted the device in his hand and tapped twice against the interface.
“Establishing relay. Routing surveillance access to command.”
Back inside the van, several dark screens immediately came alive one after another, streams of live CCTV footage rapidly syncing across Niel’s monitors.
Niel’s fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as he stabilized the incoming feeds.
“Helium. Relay confirmed. Visual access established.”
At the front desk, one of the staff kept glancing toward the hallway.
“Simon has been in the restroom for a while,” she muttered.
“Should we check?”
The other staff did not even look up from the system.
“He said he was not feeling well earlier. Probably just resting.”
The concern faded quickly.
It was not unusual for someone on shift to take longer breaks, especially during slow hours.
A few minutes later, the restroom door finally opened and Simon walked out, adjusting his cuffs as he returned to the counter.
“Sorry,” he said casually.
“Got worse than I thought.”
One of the staff laughed lightly.
“You always say that. Just do not collapse on us.”
He gave a small smile and took his seat like nothing had happened, opening the reservation system immediately, eyes scanning the list with practiced ease.
Adrian Mercer.
The reservation was already there.
He did not pause on it for long, only leaning slightly toward the staff beside him as if continuing an ordinary shift conversation.
“Mercer’s still set for 1403, right?”
The staff nodded without hesitation.
“Yeah, VIP floor. ETA within the hour.”
“Got it,” he said simply.
“Just thought I saw a note earlier about timing adjustments.”
The staff frowned and checked again.
“No updates. Still the same.”
He nodded once and turned back to the system, continuing his work without urgency.
From the outside, everything looked normal—routine front desk coordination, standard guest handling, nothing out of place.
He rested one arm casually against the desk while the other moved briefly beneath the terminal out of sight.
Hidden from the staff beside him, he smoothly inserted a tiny black injector device into one of the unused ports beneath the monitor.
The device blinked once.
Then vanished into the system.
None of the staff noticed anything unusual.
One of them was busy sorting reservation confirmations while another complained quietly about an impatient guest at check-in.
He simply continued working alongside them as though nothing had happened
Back in the van, multiple new windows immediately opened across Niel’s monitors as live access permissions propagated through the hotel network.
Reservation logs, elevator routing, internal service schedules, maintenance access, guest movement records—everything began syncing in real time.
“Transfer stable,” Niel muttered, filtering through the incoming information.
“Front desk confirmation is consistent.”
Everything aligned perfectly with the system records.
No discrepancies.
No gaps.
From the surveillance room, Jayden’s attention stayed on the camera feeds and elevator movement logs shifting across the monitors in front of him, quietly monitoring the system.
And at the front desk, Simon continued working without hesitation, blending so naturally into the rhythm of the hotel staff that nobody questioned him twice.
He casually reached up to adjust the earpiece hidden beneath his hair before returning his attention to the terminal like nothing had happened.
Because Simon had never been on duty that day at all.
It was Sean.
Room 1403 sat at the far end of the hallway, its doors still closed off while preparations for the VIP arrival continued quietly across the floor.
The corridor itself remained calm—soft carpeted flooring, muted golden lighting, distant elevator chimes occasionally breaking the silence.
A housekeeping cart rolled steadily down the hall.
Soren pushed it forward, posture relaxed enough to avoid attention yet precise enough not to invite scrutiny.
His uniform fit cleanly beneath the hotel insignia, while the black gloves hidden beneath his sleeves remained carefully out of sight.
Ahead, another housekeeping staff stepped out of Room 1403 carrying folded towels against her arm.
She looked up the moment she noticed him approaching.
“Oh,” she said lightly.
“Perfect timing.”
Soren stopped beside the cart.
The housekeeper sighed tiredly and gestured toward the room behind her.
“I still need to recheck the bathroom and restock the minibar before the VIP arrives. Our supervisor is already yelling at me downstairs.”
Soren glanced once toward the room.
The housekeeper blinked, then relief immediately crossed her face.
“God, thank you.”
She was about to pass him the key card when she paused, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“…Wait.”
Soren stayed still.
“I have not seen you before.”
Silence.
The housekeeper tilted her head a little, studying him more carefully now.
“Are you new?”
For the first time since entering the hotel, Soren felt the conversation shift away from routine.
His expression remained calm and unreadable beneath the warm hallway lights, posture steady as if nothing about the interaction had changed.
But internally, his mind was already recalculating.
The housekeeper’s suspicion was minor—ordinary workplace unfamiliarity, nothing more—but even small inconsistencies had the potential to escalate inside controlled environments like this.
One wrong response could lead to unnecessary verification, delayed movement, and additional staff involvement.
Operational risk.
The housekeeper gave a small awkward laugh.
“Sorry, it is just—we usually know everyone assigned on this floor.”
Soren finally spoke, “…New transfer.”
The response came naturally this time, controlled and measured without hesitation.
Almost enough.
The housekeeper still looked uncertain.
“From which branch?”
Soren’s gaze held steady on her, outwardly patient while silently waiting for Niel to finish accessing the employee registry.
“Give me thirty seconds,” Niel muttered while rapidly pulling up employee records across his monitor.
The housekeeper’s suspicion sharpened slightly, not enough to panic, just enough to notice.
“What is your name?”
Soren still did not answer.
“What is happening?” Linn asked, taking a sip of cold chocolate beside Niel.
“Soren is experiencing social interaction.”
Linn almost spat the drink directly onto the monitors.
Niel’s fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing the employee registry Sean had accessed earlier.
Staff files rapidly scrolled past his screen until he pulled up an existing personnel record from another branch.
A legitimate employee profile.
He rerouted the transfer authorization into the hotel system, syncing it with active staffing logs.
“Daniel Reyes,” he said through comms.
Soren repeated, “Daniel Reyes.”
“Hold on.” The housekeeper pulled out the small staff phone attached to her uniform.
Then—
“The system says you transferred from the East Tower branch this morning.” She laughed awkwardly, visibly embarrassed by her suspicion.
“My bad. They really stopped informing us about staffing changes.”
She finally handed him the key card.
“Thanks for covering the room.”
Soren accepted it with a small nod.
The moment the housekeeper disappeared toward the elevator, the atmosphere around him shifted instantly.
His movements became quieter, sharper, and efficient.
He entered Room 1403 and closed the door softly behind him.
Inside, the suite remained untouched beneath warm ambient lighting—expensive furniture, polished marble surfaces, and a city skyline visible through massive glass windows.
His eyes swept across the room once.
Layout memorized immediately.
Without wasting a second, he reached beneath the housekeeping cart and removed a compact black case hidden beneath the towels.
Soren moved.
One device beneath the coffee table.
Another hidden behind the ventilation panel near the bedroom.
Micro-camera installed inside the decorative wall fixture facing the main sitting area.
A listening device slipped beneath the underside of the minibar shelf.
Every movement was precise, silent, and practiced.
Inside a black sedan parked near the hotel entrance, Jion sat in silence, eyes fixed on the drop-off lane through the windshield.
“The target vehicle has arrived.”
Black armored sedan.
Mercedes-Maybach S680 Guard.
Plate VX-814-M.
The vehicle stopped at the main entrance, and Mercer stepped out under escort.
“Visual confirmed.”
Jion watched him through the glass.
“Proceed.”