Keep Going
Copyright© 2026 by Trevor Dohlen
Chapter 11: Breadcrumbs
Rebecca Hale found Daniel Mercer in Bangkok.
For eleven minutes.
Kevin Cho appeared at her office door holding his laptop.
“I’ve got him.”
Hale looked up.
“Alive?”
Kevin’s enthusiasm dropped slightly.
“I’ve got a transaction.”
“Then you don’t have him.”
“I have a transaction that looks interesting.”
“Better.”
Kevin sat down and turned the laptop toward her.
One of the addresses associated with Daniel’s distribution wallet had spent bitcoin seventeen hours earlier.
Part of the transaction eventually reached a payment processor.
The processor serviced merchants in several countries.
Kevin had obtained the merchant information through an existing investigative channel.
Bangkok.
A hotel.
Hale leaned forward.
“When?”
“Yesterday. Local time, 21:17.”
“Hotel name?”
“Rattanakosin Grand.”
“Guest?”
“Don’t have that yet.”
“Amount?”
Kevin showed her.
Hale converted it mentally.
“About four hundred dollars.”
“Three eighty-seven at the time.”
“Hotel room?”
“Could be.”
“Restaurant?”
“Could be.”
“Deposit?”
“Could be.”
Hale looked at him.
“You’ve been talking to Mercer.”
Kevin grinned.
“Maybe.”
“Call the hotel.”
The Rattanakosin Grand had no Daniel Mercer registered.
Hale tried variations.
Daniel.
Dan.
D. Mercer.
Mercer.
Nothing.
The hotel accounting department eventually identified the payment.
Restaurant and bar.
The receipt had been for a private dining room.
Hale’s excitement returned.
“Name on reservation?”
A company.
A Thai import-export firm.
“Guests?”
No record.
“Security footage?”
Available for thirty days.
Hale started the process to preserve it.
Three days later she watched twelve people eat dinner.
None was Daniel.
Kevin sat beside her.
“Well.”
Hale froze the image.
“Who paid?”
“Bitcoin transaction ultimately funded the processor invoice.”
“From Daniel’s wallet.”
“From an address Mercer identifies as part of Daniel’s wallet tree.”
Hale pointed at him.
“Good.”
Kevin smiled.
“I’m learning.”
“Who initiated it?”
“Unknown.”
“So Bangkok is what?”
“A breadcrumb.”
“No.”
Kevin waited.
Hale said, “It’s evidence that bitcoin associated with Daniel’s wallet helped pay a restaurant bill in Bangkok.”
“That’s a really long label.”
“It’s also accurate.”
She closed the video.
For eleven minutes she’d had Daniel in Thailand.
Now she had dinner.
The next breadcrumb appeared in Reykjavík.
Then Cape Town.
Then Omaha.
Hale disliked Omaha most.
Bangkok made sense.
Cape Town made sense.
Reykjavík made sense.
Daniel was wealthy and traveled constantly.
Omaha seemed insulting.
“What did he buy?”
Kevin looked at the record.
“Auto parts.”
“What kind?”
“Alternator.”
“For what?”
“1972 Chevrolet pickup.”
Hale stared at him.
“Daniel owns a 1972 Chevrolet pickup?”
“No record of one.”
“Then why is his bitcoin buying an alternator for one?”
Kevin shrugged.
“Maybe he made a friend.”
“Maybe it isn’t him.”
“That too.”
They found the purchaser.
His name was Raymond Foster.
He was sixty-three, lived outside Omaha and did indeed own a 1972 Chevrolet C10.
Hale called him.
“Mr. Foster, I’m trying to identify the source of a payment made for an alternator you purchased.”
Raymond immediately became suspicious.
“I paid for that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There isn’t necessarily a problem.”
“I have the receipt.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“How did you pay?”
“Bitcoin.”
Hale sat straighter.
“Your Bitcoin?”
“Yeah.”
“From your own wallet?”
There was a pause.
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“My nephew showed me.”
“What’s your nephew’s name?”
“Why?”
Hale explained enough to keep him talking.
Eventually the story emerged.
Raymond had given his nephew cash.
His nephew had paid the merchant in Bitcoin.
The nephew lived in Denver.
The nephew had bought the Bitcoin months earlier through an exchange.
Kevin checked.
The transaction path intersected Daniel’s cluster because of an earlier transaction involving a large multi-input spend.
Not Daniel.
Probably not even Daniel’s money by the time it reached Raymond’s alternator.
Hale looked at Kevin.
“You said this was Daniel.”
“I said it was connected.”
“Connected like I’m connected to Genghis Khan.”
“Probably fewer hops.”
“Kevin.”
“Right.”
Hale called Mercer.
The familiar face appeared.
“Good morning, Ms. Hale.”
“I found Daniel in Omaha.”
“That seems unlikely.”
She smiled.
“Why?”
“Your phrasing suggests you did not.”
“I found one of his transactions buying an alternator.”
“Which transaction?”
She supplied the identifier.
Mercer analyzed it.
“That transaction does not spend from a currently monitored Daniel output.”
“It traces back to one.”
“Many transactions trace back to many earlier transactions.”
“How many?”
“Potentially a very large number.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It is important.”
Hale leaned back.
“Explain.”
“Bitcoin transaction history forms a graph. Once outputs are spent, combined and redistributed, simplistic statements that later bitcoin is ‘the same bitcoin’ can become misleading.”
“So you’re telling me the sats lose their identity?”
“Individual satoshis can be conceptually traced using ordering assumptions, but Bitcoin’s consensus rules do not attach personal ownership histories to individual satoshis.”
Hale frowned.
“In English.”
“If Daniel pays Alice, Alice pays Bob, Bob combines those funds with others and later pays Carol, it does not follow that Daniel paid Carol.”
“Even though I can draw a line.”
“Yes.”
“Then blockchain tracing is useless.”
“No.”
Hale waited.
“It can establish transaction relationships and support inferences. Those inferences must not be confused with facts the blockchain itself proves.”
Hale smiled.
“You enjoy saying that.”
“I do not experience enjoyment.”
“Right.”
Hale’s investigation shifted.
She stopped trying to follow every downstream satoshi.
Instead she concentrated on the first spend from known Daniel-derived addresses.
Those were more interesting.
Mercer provided the address sequence voluntarily within the scope Margaret had approved.
Hundreds of addresses.
Hundreds of distributions.
Some untouched.
Some spent.
Some combined.
Some split.
Hale built a timeline.
Something emerged.
Daniel’s spending was irregular.
That wasn’t surprising.
What was surprising was how irregular.
A UTXO might sit untouched for four years.
Another might move three days after receipt.
Several would move together.
Then nothing for months.
Kevin studied the chart.
“Could be coin control.”
“Meaning?”
“Daniel deliberately selecting specific outputs to spend.”
“Why?”
“Privacy. Accounting. Tax lots. Consolidation. Fees. Personal preference.”
“Could Mercer be doing it?”
“Not without the private keys.”
“Could software Daniel wrote be doing it?”
Kevin looked at her.
“Yes.”
Hale circled that.
“Automated wallet.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Daniel ever mention one?”
“He mentioned hundreds of things.”
“Did he write software?”
“Yes.”
“Could he write something that automatically spends Bitcoin?”
Margaret smiled.
“You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Who should I ask?”
“Michael.”
Michael’s answer was immediate.
“Absolutely.”
Hale leaned forward.
“He did?”
“No. You asked whether he could.”
She sighed.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he automate other things?”
Michael laughed.
“Have you met Mercer?”
“Point taken.”
“Dad automated anything he found annoying.”
“Would he find spending Bitcoin annoying?”
“No. He liked that.”
Hale wrote it down.
Michael added, “But he might automate it because it was interesting.”
She crossed it out.
“That’s not helpful.”
“Welcome to Dad.”
Hale obtained Daniel’s travel records where legally available.
The timeline became stranger.
A verified airline ticket placed him in Madrid.
Four days later, a hotel record placed him in Lisbon.
Three weeks later, a motorcycle rental placed him in Spain.
Then nothing.
Two months later, his passport was scanned entering Singapore.
That was significant.
Hale checked it three times.
Passport number correct.
Photograph matched.
Biographic data matched.
Entry recorded.
No corresponding exit appeared in the records she had.
“Singapore,” she said.
Kevin nodded.
“Looks solid.”
“Finally.”
She called Mercer.
“Daniel entered Singapore.”
“What is your evidence?”
Hale described it.
“That is strong evidence that Daniel’s passport was presented and accepted at a Singapore border checkpoint.”
Hale stared.
“You can’t just let me have one, can you?”
“I do not understand.”
“Daniel entered Singapore.”
“That is the most likely interpretation.”
“Thank you.”
“It is not logically identical to—”
“Stop.”
Mercer stopped.
Hale smiled.
“I’m putting him in Singapore.”
“That is reasonable.”
She blinked.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Mark the date.”
“I already have.”
For nearly two weeks Hale believed Singapore might solve it.
Hotels produced nothing.
Airlines produced nothing.
Hospitals produced nothing accessible through normal inquiry.
No death record.
No arrest.
No obvious financial activity.
No departure record.
Then Kevin found the exit.
Not Singapore.
Malaysia.
Land crossing.
Three weeks after Daniel entered Singapore.
Hale stared at the record.
“He crossed into Malaysia.”
“Yes.”
“Passport?”
“Yes.”
“Photo?”
“Border image available.”
Daniel looked directly at the camera.
Older.
Beard longer.
Definitely Daniel.
Hale stared at the photograph.
For the first time in months, she felt she was following a human being.
Not cryptography.
Not network endpoints.
Not software.
A man.
“Where next?”
Kevin shook his head.
“Nothing.”
Malaysia became the new edge of the map.
Hale reconstructed what she could.
One hotel stay.
Cash withdrawal.
A train ticket.
A mobile SIM purchased with identification.
Then silence.
The SIM remained active for eleven days.
Its last tower connection was near Penang.
Hale stared at the map.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Bitcoin?”
Kevin checked.
“Daniel-derived output spent nine days later.”
“Where?”
“Blockchain.”
She glared.
“You know what I mean.”
“No location information.”
“Exchange?”
“No.”
“Merchant?”
“No.”
“Direct transaction. Two outputs.”
“One destination?”
“Unknown.”
Hale leaned back.
“So Daniel disappears in Malaysia and nine days later his Bitcoin moves.”
“Yes.”
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t prove anything.”
Kevin smiled.
“You’ve definitely been talking to Mercer.”
Hale traveled to Malaysia.
That decision surprised Delaney.
“You’re flying halfway around the world for a missing lottery winner?”
“For a financial investigation.”
“That’s not what your expense request says.”
“What does it say?”
“Missing lottery winner.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.