Chương 11
Viktor fired from the floor.
One of the tunnel guards fell.
The second ran toward the tunnel.
Ivan moved behind a concrete column and fired twice. Viktor rolled beneath the steel table. Laptop screens shattered above him.
Bell grabbed Marco by the hair and dragged him toward the suitcase.
“Open it!” he shouted at Clara.
She crouched behind the cart, ears ringing.
Marco clawed at Bell’s wrist.
Bell fired into the ceiling.
Dust and rust fell over them.
“Open it, or the next one goes through him.”
Clara stood slowly.
Viktor remained pinned behind the table. Ivan’s rifle covered him. The wounded man near Clara held his bleeding thigh and reached for the knife.
She kicked it away.
Bell’s nose bled over his mouth. Without his glasses, his eyes looked pale and unfocused.
“The key,” he said.
Clara approached the suitcase.
One lock had been forced open. The other remained intact. Near the handle, almost hidden by worn stitching, was a narrow black keyway.
She inserted the copy Mr. Han said might turn smoothly.
It did not move.
Bell watched her hand.
“You gave me the wrong one.”
“It’s old.”
“Try again.”
She applied pressure. The key bent slightly.
Behind Bell, Marco looked at the ceiling, then toward the portable lamps. His hands were tied, but one plastic loop hung partially cut.
Clara understood.
She let the key slip from her fingers.
It fell beneath the cart.
Bell cursed and bent to retrieve it.
Marco tore his right hand free and shoved the nearest portable lamp into Ivan’s line of fire.
The room went dark.
Viktor fired twice.
Someone screamed.
Clara dropped flat and crawled beneath the cart. A bullet struck the suitcase above her. Another hit a pipe. Steam burst into the room with a deafening hiss.
She found the fallen key and rolled toward Marco’s voice.
A hand caught her ankle.
The wounded man in the tan jacket dragged himself across the floor, blood spreading beneath him. He reached for her apron.
Clara kicked his face once, then again.
His grip loosened.
She crawled through steam until she struck Marco’s shoulder.
“Clara?”
“Down.”
Viktor shouted from somewhere near the boiler. “Ivan is moving to the tunnel.”
Bell fired blindly.
The muzzle flash revealed him three feet away.
Marco drove into Bell’s knees. Bell fell against the suitcase cart. Clara grabbed his gun hand with both hands and slammed it against the steel frame.
The pistol discharged.
Bell’s body jerked.
For a second Clara thought she had been shot.
Then Bell slid to the floor, staring at the dark stain spreading across his shirt.
Marco backed away, horrified.
“I didn’t—”
“He shot himself,” Clara said, though she did not know whether that was true.
The steam thinned.
Emergency lights flickered on, dim and red.
Viktor stood near the tunnel entrance with blood on one side of his face. One guard lay motionless. The other had disappeared. Ivan was gone.
Viktor checked Bell’s pulse.
“Alive.”
Bell coughed. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
“Ambulance,” Clara said.
Viktor looked at her.
“He’s alive.”
“He will expose everyone in this room.”
“He’s alive.”
Viktor took out an unregistered phone from Bell’s table and called emergency services. He gave the address and described multiple gunshot victims without identifying himself.
Marco sat against the boiler, staring at his bloody hands.
Clara cut his remaining restraint.
“Mom?”
“Outside.”
His shoulders collapsed with relief.
Then he looked at the suitcase.
“We need to leave.”
“Not yet.”
She inserted the original key into the hidden lock.
It turned with a soft click.
The false bottom released.
Beneath the lining lay a small black ledger wrapped in plastic, a memory card sealed in an evidence envelope, and a folded letter addressed in block handwriting:
TO THE PERSON WHO OPENS THIS AFTER I FAIL.
Viktor read over her shoulder.
“Do not touch the card,” he said.
Clara picked up the ledger instead.
It was smaller than she expected. Men had died for something that could fit inside her apron.
Marco looked at it with disgust.
“That’s it?”
Viktor answered, “That is enough.”
A phone vibrated on Bell’s table.
The secure video application opened by itself.
Aleksandr appeared on-screen.
He was no longer in a hospital bed. He sat upright in a plain room with concrete walls. A bandage covered his temple. Behind him stood a man holding a pistol.
Ivan entered the frame.
He had escaped through the tunnel and reached Aleksandr’s location, or the video had been recorded earlier. Clara could not tell.
Ivan placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder.
“You opened the case,” he said.
Viktor aimed at the screen as if the pistol could cross the connection.
Aleksandr looked directly at Clara.
“Do not give the ledger to Viktor.”
The room went quiet except for escaping steam.
Viktor’s face did not change.
Clara held the ledger tighter.
Ivan smiled.
Aleksandr continued. “He will give it to my son.”
“That is a lie,” Viktor said.
Aleksandr’s eyes shifted toward him.
“You protected Mikhail longer than I did.”
“I protected you.”
“You protected the structure around me. There is a difference.”
Viktor stepped closer to the phone. “Where are you?”
“You already know.”
“I do not.”
“Saint Anne’s.”
Clara looked toward the tunnel.
Marco whispered, “That connects to the hospital.”
Ivan had left the boiler room only minutes earlier. The video was live.
Aleksandr said, “Ivan believes the ledger can purchase his freedom. Mikhail believes it can preserve his empire. Bell believed he could sell every page separately. Viktor believes he can choose which names deserve exposure.”
Viktor’s jaw tightened.
Clara looked at him. “Is that true?”
“No.”
Aleksandr gave a tired smile. “Ask him about page forty-seven.”
Clara opened the ledger.
The entries were written in compact columns: dates, initials, amounts, addresses. Several names had been marked with red lines.
Page forty-seven listed V.P.
Payments appeared beside the initials for eleven years.
Clara looked up.
May you like
Viktor did not deny it.
“What were you paid for?”
