Chapter 10 - The Door Behind the Door
Reed laid his credentials on the diner table. “My supervisor says the case is now a matter of national security and I should stand down.”
“Are you going to?” Mara asked.
He looked at the picture of Ellen on Mara's phone. “Not while there's a hostage.”
Shaw joined them by secure video and authorized the preservation of evidence through a separate channel. It wasn't enough to raid an Army installation, but it kept the witnesses from vanishing without a record.
“We need a warrant,” Reed said. “And people who will execute it.”
Mara studied a schematic of Northwatch Annex taken from public county filings. The old building had been a communications relay station. The present owners listed it as a training center. A service road ran along the ridge. A storm-drain channel passed beneath the northern fence.
Liang pointed at the building. “Daniel was kept below ground when I saw him.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
Mara swallowed. “You saw him?”
“Yes. I was ordered to assess his physical condition. He asked me to test your fighting skill during a public demonstration.”
“Why?”
“He needed to know you'd keep your head when someone tried to provoke you. Rourke wanted the same demonstration to become an assault charge.”
Mara remembered Liang's first kick, how he'd knocked her down but left her room to rise. “You were helping him from the start.”
“I was trying.”
Naomi accessed a public traffic camera near the annex. At 10:42 p.m., a convoy of three black vans entered the site. One carried the Meridian symbol beneath a layer of gray tape.
Ruth Calder called from Mara's parents' street. “I have news about your father. He tried following the kidnappers. Someone hit his car.”
“Is he hurt?” Mara asked.
“He's alive. Broken wrist. They took his phone.”
The anger nearly knocked Mara off her feet. They had her mother, threatened her father, and buried her brother alive. Yet she could still hear Daniel saying, Don't give them what they want.
May you like
Outside the diner a waitress turned the OPEN sign toward the street, unaware of the argument unfolding inside. Mara watched people hurry past with lunches and shopping bags. She envied their ordinary errands, the privilege of wondering what to eat for dinner instead of which uniformed officer might betray you. Daniel had once told her that duty was supposed to keep ordinary days ordinary for everyone else. She'd believed him. She still wanted to. Reed placed a folded paper napkin beside the map and began writing names of offices willing to put decisions on the record. One line at a time, they started building a path through the fear. It wasn't heroic. It was slow and uncertain. For the first time that day, Mara saw how it might work.
As she steadied herself, an unknown number sent a photograph of Daniel in a windowless room. Beside him was a handwritten note: MARA, DO NOT TRADE THE DRIVE. THE NIGHT SHIFT IS MOVING US.
