The Real Heiress Is Coming Back (Hannah Carter) novel Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Chapter 135

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Hannah swept her flashlight around. Their car was parked right in the middle of a dirt road, no pavement, no streetlights, and definitely no surveillance cameras.

On both sides of the road were dense groves of trees, mostly banyan trees, which was why this place was called the Banyan

Grove.

The whole grove was massive, and Hannah had no idea if the fourth tree Yvette mentioned was on the left or the right. If they just started searching randomly, they could be out here all night and still not find it.

“Let’s start by checking the grove on the right, one tree at a time,” Hannah said. “We’re heading into the village on the main road, and since we usually stick to the right, the fourth tree should be the fourth one from this side.”

Vincent swept his flashlight over the grove on the right. He was pretty familiar with this area.

Meanwhile, Ethan spread out a map on the hood of the car for Hannah to see. The Banyan Grove was circled, and a few main roads were marked.

This was something he’d asked Vincent to help him prepare before he even got on the planc.

Hannah glanced at the map. Even with the markings, it was just a basic sketch of the area, since this was the countryside, there was no way to tell exactly where the trees were or how many there might be.

“Are there any other roads past the groves on either side?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah, but they’re all just little trails. Outsiders almost never use them, only the locals do,” Vincent replied.

He grabbed a pen, clamped the flashlight between his teeth, and marked the small paths on the map with dotted lines.

Using all the routes Vincent had marked, Ethan figured out nearly twenty places they’d have to check.

With just the three of them, splitting up meant each person would have to cover six or seven spots, that’s gonna be a real grind.

“Guess we’ve got no choice, let’s do this!” Vincent said, pulling the flashlight from his mouth and pointing at the map. “You two stick together and search the grove on the left. I know this side better, so I’ll take the right one myself.”

With that, he dug out two walkie-talkies from the car and handed them to Ethan. “You guys take the car. Stay in contact.”

“I’ve got an idea, but not sure if it’ll actually work,” Hannah suddenly spoke up.

“What is it?” Vincent and Ethan both asked at the same time.

Hannah pointed up at the sky, and Ethan and Vincent looked up.

It was cloudy, no moon in sight, and barely any stars.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Vincent asked, turning back to Hannah with a puzzled look.

Hannah blurted out, “Satellite surveillance.”

Vincent grinned, giving her a thumbs-up. “Trust a pretty face to come up with something wild!”

Ethan couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “By the time we jump through all the hoops with the authorities, we’ll have combed through every tree ourselves.”

Plus, even if they had managed to gain satellite access, there was no way to retrieve footage from a month prior; the system

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Chapter 135

could only display real-time data.

Hannah kept it to herself, she didn’t mention that she could probably tap into the satellite feed right now, no need for any official red tape.

Ethan and Vincent were both by-the-book government types; it never crossed their minds that Hannah might bend the rules. They just thought she was joking and didn’t give it a second thought.

“Hang tight in the car. We’ll go check out a few spots nearby,” Ethan said.

Hannah didn’t say no. Once they headed out, she slipped into the back seat, pulled her laptop from her bag, and powered it

She connected to her phone’s hotspot, plugged in a USB drive, and her nimble fingers danced across the keyboard. Lines of code raced across the screen.

Meanwhile, at a military airbase in Veridia, it was daytime due to the time difference.

Suddenly, one of the staff on duty noticed an alert flashing on the screen, one of their satellites was reporting abnormal data.

“Attention! Someone’s trying to hack into VER-224. Go to full alert!” he shouted.

He immediately sounded the alarm, and everyone in the office snapped to attention.

For over half an hour, the office was filled with the rapid clatter of keyboards.

“The vulnerability at the breach point still isn’t fixed. This approach is classic Shadow! Shadow’s at it again!” someone shouted.

“No, that’s not Shadow. See that raven icon? That’s Raven,” another person said.

“Who the hell cares who it is? Just block them!” someone else snapped.

“They’re trying to change VER-224’s orbit! Block it, now!” someone shouted.

“We can’t stop it!”

“Me neither. Whoever this is, they’re a world-class hacker.”

“Shit! The orbit’s been altered! Log everything they’re doing, now!”

“Trace their location! Find out who this Raven really is!”

“Wait, hold up, why did they redirect VER-224 to that spot?”

One of the bearded guys pulled up the satellite footage after the orbit/shift.

The screen was blacker than midnight, but one could still make out a grove of trees, with a few beams of light moving around, looked like someone was up to something down there.

They ran the coordinates and locked onto the exact spot: a rural village in Linxire, Southmart, Cynthoria.

They tried to zoom in for a closer look, hoping to catch whoever was down there, but before they could see anything, the video feed was wiped. VER-224 snapped back to its original orbit, and just like that, the hacker was gone.

All that remained on the screen was a message in Thalvarin: [Borrowed your satellite for a bit. As payment, I patched up your security flaw.]

Someone double-checked the system and shouted, “No way, the bug’s actually gone!”

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Chapter 135

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Everyone looked at each other, a bit stunned, until someone finally spoke up.

“So they just borrowed our VER-224, just to grab some surveillance footage?

“Back in Cynthorian, they call this ‘using a sledgehammer to kill a chicken.”

Once everyone realized what had happened, the whole office went completely silent.

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‘Raven must be an organization, right? No way a single person could have so many hands, hacking a satellite, rerouting its orbit, and still having the bandwidth to fix the security hole afterward, someone thought, mind blown.

This crew is seriously scary. If they can break into our top military satellite, VER-224, just imagine if they were working for Cynthoria’s army. That’d be straight-up war between nations!’ another person thought, chills running down their spine.

A burly blue-eyed man slammed his fist on the desk, swearing loudly.

“Fuck! They’re totally disrespecting Veridia! I don’t care what it takes, find me this Raven!”

Back in the Banyan Grove, Linxire, Southmart, the night wind was picking up, making the leaves whisper all around.

Hannah shivered as a wave of cold hit her, and her headache was getting worse. Ugh, not now, she thought, fishing out her acupuncture needles. She quickly stuck a few into herself, then went right back to hacking.

She zoomed the satellite image all the way in, down to a centimeter or two. With that kind of resolution, she could see every little detail on the ground.

It was pitch dark out, but after tweaking the brightness, she could easily pick out where the trees were.

She lined up the spots Ethan had marked on the map with the trees in the satellite view, then checked for any marks in the grass. That’s when she found a patch of ground that looked like it had been dug up.

It wasn’t on the main road they’d parked on, but counting from the left, down a little trail at the edge of the grove, it was the fourth tree.

Hannah glanced outside and could barely see the faint glow of Ethan and Vincent’s flashlights, they were already a ways into the grove.

She picked up the walkie-talkie Ethan had left and said, “Ethan, I found the spot. I’m gonna go check it out first.”

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11:16 Mon, Dec 22 G