Chương 18
Nora studied the layout. “A tactical team can approach through Building B.”
“Marcus will see vehicles,” Sophia said.
“We can stage from the rail yard.”
“He has cameras there.”
Nora’s frustration flashed. “Then what do you suggest?”
Sophia stared at the plan.
The cleaning crew entered through the south gate at ten each night. Brightline’s van had a company transponder. Marcus rarely watched them arrive because invisibility had been built into the job. Cleaners belonged everywhere and mattered nowhere.
Her own van might still be at the warehouse.
“Use Brightline,” she said.
Nora understood first. “A cleaning crew.”
“He’ll expect the shift, especially if Celia hasn’t told him she’s in custody.”
“She has not been arrested.”
“But her phone is being monitored?”
Nora did not answer.
That meant yes.
Julian looked at the map. “My people can enter in the van.”
“No,” Nora said.
“Your tactical officers do not know the routines.”
“Sophia can brief them.”
“Marcus has seen some of them during previous surveillance.”
“You do not know my full team.”
“I know enough.”
Sophia raised her voice. “Stop.”
Both turned to her.
“The van takes four workers. Two usually get out at Building A. Two continue to C. If all four stay inside, Marcus may notice. If men get out, he’ll notice faster.”
Nora looked at her injuries.
“No.”
“I’m not saying I go.”
“You were about to.”
Sophia was.
Elena saw it.
“No,” she said.
“Laney.”
“No.”
“It would get the officers closer.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“I only need to sit in the passenger seat.”
“You promised you weren’t leaving me.”
“I promised I would see you soon.”
“That was the first promise.”
Sophia stared at her sister.
Elena’s face had gone pale, but she did not cry. Her anger returned, thin and desperate.
“You always change the wording after,” she said. “Mom asked you to take care of me, so you decided that meant you could get destroyed as long as I stayed alive.”
“That is not what I’m doing.”
“It is exactly what you’re doing.”
Sophia glanced at Nora, Julian, the hallway walls. There was no private place left in their lives.
“Elena,” she said, “a man is tied up in that warehouse because I moved the drive.”
“No. He is there because Marcus tied him up.”
“I can help.”
“You helped. You found the door.”
“They need someone Marcus expects to see.”
“He beat you.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll do it again.”
“Not with a tactical team in the van.”
“You don’t know that.”
The phrase had passed between all of them for two days. No one knows. No one guarantees. Every choice enters darkness before consequences turn on the lights.
Sophia reached for Elena’s hand.
Elena pulled away.
“If you go,” she said, “don’t say you’re doing it for me.”
Then she walked into the bedroom and shut the door.
The sound was not loud.
It ended the argument more effectively than a slam.
Sophia sat on the edge of the couch. Pain tightened around her chest. Julian remained in the hall, hands at his sides.
Nora said, “You are medically unfit.”
“Would it work?”
“That is not the only question.”
“Would it?”
Nora looked at the floor plan. “Possibly.”
Julian said, “No.”
Sophia turned toward him. “You don’t decide.”
“I decide whether my cooperation depends on placing you in Marcus’s reach.”
“Your cooperation?”
“Yes.”
“You came here to ask for my help.”
“I came for information.”
“And now you have it.”
“I also have enough sense not to use you as bait.”
Sophia laughed bitterly. “You counted down while I was bleeding on a sidewalk.”
“To make you name a threat.”
“You lifted my chin like I belonged to you.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“You don’t get to become careful now because guilt finally reached you,” she said.
Nora stepped between them. “This operation does not depend on either of you settling a moral argument.”
“No,” Sophia said. “It depends on Marcus believing the van is ordinary.”
She looked at the closed bedroom door.
“I’ll do it,” she said, “but not for Elena.”
Julian’s eyes remained on her.
“I’m doing it because Owen Pike is alive right now,” she continued. “Because workers are still in those records. Because Marcus thinks hurting me made him the author of what happens next.”
Nora folded the tablet cover shut.
“You stay inside the vehicle,” she said. “Body armor under loose clothing. Medical officer present. If the plan changes, you leave. One refusal and the operation ends.”
Sophia nodded.
Julian did not.
Nora looked at him. “Your role is limited to a recorded phone call from the command vehicle.”
“He will recognize staging noise.”
“You can make the call from the cleaning van before it enters.”
Sophia said, “He expects Julian alone.”
“He expects what he asked for,” Julian replied. “He does not expect to receive it.”
Nora stared at him. “You are not entering that warehouse.”
Julian adjusted his cuff. The signet ring caught the hallway light.
“I heard you.”
“That is not agreement.”
“It is the most you are getting.”
The Brightline van smelled of bleach, damp rags, and old coffee.
Sophia sat in the passenger seat wearing a company jacket over body armor. The vest pressed against her fractured ribs despite padding added by the medical officer. Every bump in the road traveled through her chest.
Dana Brooks drove.
Two tactical officers lay concealed beneath equipment in the rear. Another Brightline van followed at a distance, carrying the rest of the entry team. Julian sat behind Sophia, visible through the gap between seats, wearing a black sweater instead of a suit jacket so the body armor beneath it would not show.
Nora had not approved his presence.
May you like
He entered the van while agents argued about a suspicious vehicle near the staging area. By the time Nora discovered him, the operation had reached the point where removing him would create more delay than keeping him.
She used several words Sophia had not expected from a prosecutor.
