Chapter 5 - A Dead Man's Identification
The security guard was alive.
Barely.
Briggs cut the restraints while I pulled the identification card free.
The photograph was Noah's.
Older.
Thinner.
A scar crossed his jaw that had not been there four years ago.
The card was authentic.
"How can a dead officer have an active credential?" Vivian asked.
"Because someone kept him alive on paper," I said.
Walter sat on the edge of the bed, gray-faced.
"Claire, there are things you were never cleared to know."
I turned on him.
"Forty-two people burned because of those things."
"I was trying to protect the country."
"From what?"
He looked at the open window.
"From everyone."
The guard coughed.
His eyelids fluttered.
"He took the girl," he whispered.
Briggs leaned closer.
"What girl?"
"Young woman. Red dress. Looked like her."
He pointed weakly at Vivian.
Vivian's anger disappeared.
"My sister."
Her younger sister, Emma Cross, had attended the gala as a medical school scholarship recipient.
We had seen her near the stage twenty minutes earlier.
Vivian grabbed her phone.
No answer.
She called again.
Straight to voicemail.
Vale's voice came through the suite speakers.
"Now we are finally motivated."
The monitor displayed Emma tied to a chair in a dark industrial room.
A digital clock counted down from fifty-nine minutes.
Vivian screamed her name.
Vale ignored her.
"Commander Mason, bring me the Nightglass access key."
"I do not have it."
"Yes, you do."
The image zoomed toward my back.
Toward the thickest scar near my left shoulder.
"The surgeons placed it inside you after the wreck."
My hand moved to the scar without thinking.
I remembered the emergency surgery.
The weeks of fever.
The naval doctors who refused to explain why one incision was deeper than the others.
Briggs stared at Walter.
"You put classified hardware inside an unconscious officer?"
Walter did not deny it.
Vivian slapped him.
The sound cracked through the suite.
"You turned her into a vault."
Walter touched his cheek.
"It was the only secure option."
"No," I said. "It was the option that cost you nothing."
The timer dropped below fifty-five minutes.
Then a second camera feed appeared.
Noah Pierce stepped into the room behind Emma.
Alive.
May you like
He looked directly at me.
"Hello, Claire."
