Chapter 16: Chapter 16 Treachery — Ink on an Old Map

The light drizzle at the beginning of the night had given way to a heavy shower. Lê An limped through the capital's small alleys, soaked from head to toe and trying to avoid attention. Her sprained ankle was swollen and painful, throbbing with every step, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. She had only one goal: the rendezvous point.

The small white truck camouflaged as an electric vehicle should have been parked in an empty lot two hundred meters from the Center. An used all her strength and tried to run as fast as possible in that direction. She had captured the original document. The plan was half successful. Now, as long as Nam connected to the satellite network, uploaded those photos to international forums, and sent them to major newspapers, the truth bomb would officially explode before dawn.

But as An staggered to the open field, a chill that wasn't caused by rainwater filled her mind.

The truck was still parked there, but the side door was wide open, allowing the rain to pour in. An pulled out the pepper spray and slowly approached.

The inside of the car was empty. Three computer screens, broadcast antenna system, keyboard, documents... all disappeared without a trace. There were no signs of struggle, fighting or blood stains. It was perfectly empty, as if Nam had just packed up and moved house.

"Nam..." An called silently, a bad premonition forming in her heart. Perhaps he had discovered that the system was compromised and evacuated to avoid being caught?

An took a night taxi, paying double for the driver to run as fast as possible to Nam's luxury apartment complex. She had to ensure that he remained safe, and most importantly, that the store of physical evidence in the vault of the safe remained intact.

The apartment hallway was as quiet as paper. An stood in front of Nam's apartment door, about to raise her hand to type in the password, when she discovered that the thick ironwood door was not locked but ajar.

She pushed the door open. The luxurious apartment that had once been their command center now appeared in a jumbled mess. Furniture had been ransacked, and books and papers were scattered all over the floor. But the strange thing was that this chaos did not bear the mark of a violent altercation or an ordinary robbery. It was a calculated, methodical search by experts.

An's eyes quickly scanned the landscape painting hanging on the living room wall. The painting was taken down and thrown on the ground. Behind it, the fireproof safe that prided itself on being "undriable" was opened with a specialized heat welding tip that cut straight into the magnetic lock.

An rushed forward, brushed off the layer of soot clinging to the wall of the safe, and looked inside.

Empty.

The village chief's bronze pipe, broken ceramic pieces proving life, Mr. Thien's suicide note denouncing Trần Văn Định... and especially the sacred stone tablet. It all evaporated completely.

An's knees went weak. She collapsed on the cold wooden floor, cold sweat mixing with rainwater. They had come here. Director Binh's henchmen had tracked down the address faster than she and Nam could have imagined. But where was Nam? Had they taken him away? Had he been eliminated?

An frantically searched her pocket, took out her backup phone (a burner phone with no registered user name), and tremblingly dialed Nam's number.

"The subscriber you have called is currently unreachable..." The operator's lifeless voice rang out like an accusation.

She was completely isolated. That giant power system used its invisible tentacles to cut off all her resources and support, stealing back all the physical evidence she had risked her life to bring from Hòn Sương valley. In the eyes of the law and society, she was now just a mentally ill, paranoid female archivist who had dared to break into a state agency to steal classified documents.

In a moment of extreme despair, An's eyes fell on the kitchen island. A red USB stick lay prominently on the black marble table. It wasn't the encrypted data-storage USB that Nam carried, but an old music USB that he often plugged into his car.

Under the USB is a yellow sticky note. There was only one hastily handwritten word: "SEE".

An grabbed the USB and rushed to the old laptop that Nam often used to back up data stored in his desk drawer. She plugged the USB into the computer and, with her hands trembling, clicked on the only video file there.

The screen turns on. Nam's face appeared. But that's no longer the calm, arrogant technology nerd who smiles with half a smile.

The man in the video looked devastated, panicked, and afraid. His eyes were bloodshot, dark circles ringed them, and his lips were pale and constantly licked. The background appeared to be a deserted airport or train station.

"An... I'm sorry," Nam's voice sounded cracked and interrupted through the laptop's speaker system. "As soon as you got down to the bunker, my system was counter-hacked. Not only did they know you were coming, but they also knew who I was and where I was. They were not ordinary cyber police. They were high-level hackers from the military intelligence force."

An held her breath, the screen seemed to be spinning before her eyes.

"They hacked into my parents' phone in the countryside... They sent me a live surveillance camera recording of a guy in a black shirt standing right in front of my parents' bedroom door, carrying a weapon," Nam hugged his face and burst into tears in the video. "We have a condition, An. Either I hand over all the physical evidence at home, provide the encryption keys so they can wipe the data on the cloud servers, and hand it over to you... or my parents will die."

Tears welled up in An's eyes and rolled down her muddy cheeks. She did not resent Nam. Faced with threats to their families, people sometimes had no choice. Director Bình's network was too powerful and cruel; they would stop at nothing to protect the family's false legend.

"I can't stand by and watch my parents die, An. I opened the safe... I provided the key to erase the data in the cloud. I betrayed you. I betrayed my promise to the people in Đan Trầm..." Nam said in extreme regret, his hands twirling his messy hair. "They transferred me a large amount of money and bought a plane ticket for me to leave the country tonight. I am never allowed to return to Vietnam again."

"An..." Nam looked straight into the camera lens, his eyes pleading. "Run away. Give up. Everything is over. In a little while they will come to this apartment to hunt you down. Go as far as possible, change your name, never look back, never mention the word Đan Trầm again. We can't fight them. I'm sorry... Please forgive me..."

The video ends abruptly, leaving a black screen and a hiss of static.

Lê An sat dumbfounded in front of the computer. She had lost everything: the physical evidence, the cloud backup, and her only teammate. The government, police, and public opinion were in the villains' hands, and she had become a wanted criminal, alone against an empire. Nam's advice was reasonable: run away and save her life. The truth about Đan Trầm would have to remain asleep beneath the foggy valley.

However, when An touched the heel of her muddy sneaker, she felt a tiny hard edge.

It's a camera memory card.

In a panic at Basement No. 4, she stuffed it into the sole of her shoe, and neither the guards nor Nam's hackers knew about the existence of these last digital photos. This small memory card is currently the only version left in the world that contains the original content of file X-14, containing Trần Văn Định's cold-blooded signature. It is the last flame of hope, flickering but strong enough to burn a forest.

Nam's betrayal did not discourage An. It was just a bitter testament to how cruel the force she was confronting was. Mr. May have to live in darkness and blindness for half a century. Mr. Bay went crazy because of the pain. Hundreds of people died unjustly. She couldn't let their sacrifices go in vain just because of her cowardice.

An forcefully pulled Nam's USB out of the computer and threw it straight into the trash. She removed the memory card from the bottom of her shoe and carefully put it in her breast pocket, the place closest to her heart. She stood up, her eyes no longer had fear, but only the coldness and determination of someone with nothing left to lose.

The escape journey would begin that night. But she would not run away and disappear. She would flee to find a higher place, a forum big enough for the bomb in her hand to explode and blow away the lies of the person rewriting history. The real war—the war of a lone keeper against an empire of memories—was only now ringing its first bell.