Chương 7
Harper held the page toward the security light.
Tiny perforations ran along the inner margin. Not printing damage. A pattern.
She tore out the page.
A narrow strip of transparent film slipped from the binding and fluttered toward the mud.
Harper caught it.
Numbers had been printed onto it in pale gray ink.
Mason said, “What is that?”
“A cipher key.”
“For what?”
The phone displayed a new image: a metal lockbox on a table.
Harper recognized it.
Her father kept the box beneath the false bottom of a workshop cabinet. He had told Mason it contained their mother’s insurance records. He had told Harper it held nothing she needed to know.
The man behind Thomas spoke.
“Your father kept copies. The key opens the index. Bring it inside.”
Hollis moved close enough for only Harper to hear.
“We hold. My team surrounds the structure.”
“They’re already watching your team.”
“How?”
“Because the countdown stopped when we arrived.”
Hollis looked at the phone.
She was right. It showed 04:12 and did not change.
A new message appeared.
DEPUTY HOLLIS HAS TWO DAUGHTERS. ONE ATTENDS COASTAL CAROLINA. THE OTHER WORKS NIGHT SHIFT AT ONSLOW MEMORIAL.
Hollis’s face went still.
Mason saw the words. “Jesus.”
The phone displayed two photographs. Young women leaving buildings at different times of day.
Hollis took one step back.
Harper watched his eyes. Fear, calculation, anger. He did not reach for his own phone, which told her more about his discipline than the badge had.
The voice said, “Deputy, remove your sidearm. Place it beneath the truck.”
Hollis did not move.
Harper said, “Don’t.”
The phone shifted to a live image of a hospital employee parking area. A young woman in blue scrubs walked beneath harsh lights.
Hollis drew his pistol slowly, removed the magazine, ejected the chambered round, and placed everything in the mud beneath the truck.
Mason stared at him.
Hollis said, “You can judge me after you have children.”
“No one’s judging you,” Maddox said.
“I am.”
Maddox’s voice hardened. “Then stop.”
The security light over the warehouse door went out.
The darkness beyond it thickened.
A strip of floor inside became visible as the sliding door opened two feet.
Harper held the transparent key.
The voice from the phone said, “Iron Ten enters alone.”
Mason stepped forward. “No.”
Harper turned to him.
For the first time that night, she saw not the younger brother who had mocked her, nor the Marine trying to prove he belonged among older men, but the boy who used to wait on the front steps whenever she stayed out past curfew. He had always been furious when she returned because fury felt safer than admitting he had been afraid.
“I need you here,” she said.
His mouth tightened. “Doing what?”
“Watching Dad.”
“He’s on a screen.”
“Watch his left hand.”
Mason looked at the video. Thomas’s bound hands rested in his lap. The fingers of his left hand moved faintly against his right wrist.
Mason frowned.
“He’s tapping,” Harper said.
“What?”
“Count it.”
She handed him the phone.
Mason looked down. “I don’t know the code.”
“You know Dad.”
That stopped him.
Harper turned to Maddox.
“If the light comes back on twice, get them away from the truck.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere that isn’t here.”
He nodded.
Hollis said, “You go in there, I can’t protect you.”
Harper slipped the cipher strip into her sleeve.
“You were never the protection they were worried about.”
She entered the warehouse.
The air inside smelled of wet wood, fertilizer, and old machine oil. Rain ticked on the metal roof. A battery lantern glowed thirty yards ahead beside a folding table.
A man sat behind it.
His hair was gray at the temples. A narrow scar pulled the corner of his mouth downward. He wore a plain blue work shirt and held no visible weapon.
Harper stopped.
For nine years, Elias Mercer had existed in her mind as a body she had failed to reach.
Iron Eleven looked older than his age and much more alive than the dead.
“You took your time,” he said.
Harper’s breathing remained steady, but the warehouse floor seemed to shift beneath her.
“I watched the building come down on you.”
“You watched the west wing come down.”
“You were in the west wing.”
“I left.”
“Before or after you triggered the charge?”
Mercer smiled faintly. “Still direct.”
“Where’s my father?”
“Not here.”
She looked toward the phone camera mounted on the table. “Then who has him?”
“Same people who had me.”
“You sent the envelope.”
“Yes.”
“You photographed him.”
“No.”
“You put the phone in my jacket.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened Hollis’s daughters.”
“No.”
Harper stared at him.
Mercer lifted both hands above the table.
“I lost control of the line twelve minutes before you reached the house.”
A red light blinked on the camera.
Someone else was watching.
Mercer continued, “The message in the envelope was mine. The photograph was not.”
“Explain quickly.”
“Vantage intercepted my courier. Repacked the envelope. Added the photo and phone. They wanted you to lead them to me.”
“And you let me.”
“I needed you to find the key.”
Harper took one step toward the table.
Mercer’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t.”
She stopped.
A thin wire ran from the underside of the table to a block fixed against the support column behind him.
Explosive.
Not large enough to destroy the warehouse. Large enough to kill everyone nearby.
“Pressure switch?” she asked.
“Heart-rate monitor.”
She saw the band beneath his cuff.
“If my pulse drops below forty or rises above one-thirty, we have a loud evening.”
“Can you remove it?”
“Not without interrupting the signal.”
“Who fitted it?”
“Vantage.”
“How did you get here?”
“They let me.”
“Why?”
“Because they knew you’d come.”
Harper looked into the darkness beyond him. “How many?”
“I’ve seen four. Probably six.”
“Dad?”
Mercer’s expression changed.
That was answer enough.
“Alive,” he said. “Last time I saw him.”
May you like
“Where?”
“Vantage training compound near the river. Old cold-storage facility. Your father found it three weeks ago.”
