The Million-Dollar Heart

Chapter 490

Vivienne's icy gaze locked onto Micah across the room, her eyes sharp and piercing with an almost palpable intensity.

Micah remained silent for a few heartbeats before switching off the intercom.

The voice that had been calling his name fell abruptly silent.

"I need to know," Micah's voice cut through the tension. "Do you have a solid plan to extract Percival safely?"

In that instant, an almost spectral aura of authority emanated from Micah, a remnant of the times he had battled through the most harrowing situations.

Thomas and Leopold, standing nearby, were momentarily taken aback.

Micah had been their drill instructor back in the day. Since becoming the deputy director, the formidable presence he once commanded seemed to have diminished. They had all assumed that Micah was past his prime, a paper pusher with graying hair.

But they were wrong. He had merely cloaked his ferocity beneath a guise of geniality, letting the years mellow his exterior.

Vivienne's gaze never wavered from Micah, shadows flickering in her eyes as she spoke with a gravity that brooked no argument, "Percival is the love of my life."

That single declaration held more weight than any promise could.

"He's the love of my life. How could I possibly leave him to face danger alone?"

Hearing Vivienne's resolute and unequivocal statement, Micah turned to issue orders, "Leopold, take Vivienne to the coordinates. Thomas, get to Soren immediately and have him report the mine's internal status!"

"No need," Vivienne interjected, pulling up a satellite map on her tablet. It showed the interior of the mine with a faint red dot marking Percival's location.

Hovering near Vivienne, Thomas voiced his concern, "Ma'am, the air is thin inside the mine. We don't know how much oxygen the captain has left, and we can't reach him."

Vivienne understood the urgency. "Does he have his headset?"

"He does, but we've lost contact. It seems a signal jammer is at play inside. No telling how long he can hold out," Leopold added quickly.

"As long as he has it," Vivienne said, retrieving a device resembling a Bluetooth speaker from Griffin's gearbox and connecting it to a laptop screen.

As soon as she activated it, all the headsets of the Vanguard Agency agents in the vicinity lost their signals.

Even the command vehicle where Micah sat was suddenly bereft of any communication.

"What's going on? Another virus?" Micah asked, bewildered.

"No." Vivienne typed in a sequence of codes, and a prompt appeared on the laptop screen. "Leopold, what's Mr. Wolf's public channel code?"

"0001."

Vivienne entered the code, and a faint sound of breathing immediately came through the speaker.

Everyone was startled, and Micah looked at Vivienne incredulously, at a loss for what had happened.

Vivienne put on a headset and said, "Mr. Wolf, can you hear me?"

After a brief pause, a voice came through, "Vivienne?"

"Holy smokes, it's Percival!" Leopold exclaimed, "Vivienne, you're a miracle worker!"

Micah, too, grasped the principle behind Vivienne's communication with Percival.

She had redirected all communication signals to focus solely on her and Percival's devices, turning the Bluetooth speaker into a targeted signal transmitter.

By inputting Percival's code, she could funnel all communication directly to the disconnected headset.

Micah's look of admiration towards Vivienne deepened.

demanded, staring at the satellite feed on her laptop,

reported from his location, "I'm in a temporary shelter within the mine. There's some air left here, and I found a cave for cover, but I'm not sure how long it will hold. I've got thirty percent oxygen

his location based on the coordinates

miles from the mine's entrance, which was hardly an ideal spot.

unknown-they would have to blast through bit by bit to reach

above Percival's position, it

with concern. "Mr. Wolf, can you hold out

extraction, she had to aim

"If you're waiting for me outside, I can hold out for twenty

he possibly succumb to the mine's depth when he had not

at the speaker, "Conserve your strength, Percival. We're coming to get you."

was stern, "Mr. Wolf, don't speak unless

you." Vivienne bit her lower lip, feeling a surge of emotion as

squad quickly set charges at the mine

passage, they must blast through

was a

mine was

Griffin's latest creations, more compact and potent than traditional explosives, resembling grenades

their precision. Carefully calculated placement allowed control over the blast radius,

a deck of cards-sometimes, a handful could make a minimal impact, and

to how you played

in real-world conditions, and Griffin was anything but certain. "Vivienne," she cautioned, "the 'Morning Glory' is still untested. This is its

moniker Griffin had affectionately

studied the intricately calculated layout, not a flicker of doubt in her gaze.

risking Percival's life for another. Once

whose heart was in his throat, but if

all his

Griffin

a billowing cloud of dust that

the dust finally settled, Leopold peered into the mouth of the mine to

comrades held their breath

"Vivienne, we've got a hole five feet wide and thirty feet

wave of relief swept over the

to the mine was a delicate matter. Using heavy machinery like excavators could have easily triggered a collapse, particularly in Weststart City, which was already scarred by extensive

could ensure the stability of the mine's interior and break through the blocked entrance, saving precious

in hand, rallied the troops. "Follow

their entrenching tools, the Vanguard Agency's special

team to

crunching numbers for

from a distance. His crow's feet crinkled in a mixture of concern

to himself, "your daughter is quite

his cane, and dialed Rivenwood's headquarters to ensure the logistic support

with a solid supply chain could

from headquarters," one of the communication officers said, holding out Micah's relentlessly buzzing

and

"Yes, sir!"

Ellington family

Vivienne or Thomas, the entire family was on the brink of

don't think something's happened to Percival, do you? We just received those threatening letters with knives, and now we

was grim. "No, Percival must be

words, Flynn

was slated to debut as the Ellington family's heir the next

event, one that demanded Percival's presence. With no idea of his

sofa, Richard broke the silence. "Flynn, you'll stand in as acting chairman. We must minimize the fallout and quell the speculation about

you sure that's

"You'll do it. When Percival returns, he can handle the rest. End of

at Richard. "Richard, I'm concerned Percival might take this

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