Chapter 7 - Pier Seventeen
Elena wanted to go immediately.
Vale refused.
Claire agreed with him.
Mercer didn't.
"Margaret gets killed while we're making plans."
Elena looked at him.
"For once, we're on the same side."
Mercer gave a humorless smile.
"Didn't expect that after I knocked you down."
"You shoved me."
"Not helping."
"No."
There was no time for forgiveness.
They built a plan.
Rourke would appear to deliver Elena and Mercer.
Vale would remain out of sight.
Claire would coordinate with investigators.
Pier Seventeen had been abandoned for years.
At 11:42 p.m., Elena and Mercer walked inside with their hands apparently restrained.
Rourke followed.
Margaret sat in a chair beneath a hanging light.
Alive.
Elena almost ran to her.
Then a man emerged from the darkness.
Thomas Kessler.
Older.
Thin.
Very much alive.
"417."
Elena hated hearing it.
"My name is Elena."
"Your mother always was stubborn."
Claire's voice came through Elena's concealed earpiece.
Hold.
Kessler approached Mercer.
"And you."
Mercer stared.
"Do I get a number too?"
"203."
Mercer laughed bitterly.
"Great. Family tradition."
Kessler wanted the archive.
Elena claimed she didn't have it.
Kessler smiled.
"The archive isn't in the bunker."
Elena remembered Claire's recording.
The scar was only the marker.
"What do you want?"
"You."
Kessler explained the final encryption required biometric data from both surviving children linked to Harbor Light.
Elena and Mercer.
Vale heard everything remotely.
Elena understood why Kessler had kept Mercer alive.
"You arranged for us to meet?"
"No. Petty Officer Mercer provided that coincidence himself."
Mercer's shame returned.
Kessler smiled.
"One childish shove accomplished what twenty-eight years of surveillance couldn't."
Elena looked at Mercer.
He couldn't meet her eyes.
Kessler ordered them toward a scanner.
Elena refused.
A guard moved toward Margaret.
Elena complied.
So did Mercer.
The system activated.
Files began decrypting.
Then Elena heard Claire.
Now.
Lights died.
Agents entered.
Chaos erupted.
Elena reached Margaret.
Mercer tackled one guard.
Vale confronted Kessler.
For a moment the two old men stood face-to-face.
"You destroyed my family," Vale said.
Kessler smiled.
"I created it."
Vale nearly lost control.
Elena stopped him.
"No."
Vale looked at her.
"He's not worth losing yourself."
Agents cuffed Kessler.
It seemed over.
Then Kessler laughed.
"You think this ends with me?"
Elena looked at him.
He nodded toward the computer.
A countdown had appeared.
00:59.
00:58.
Claire shouted through the radio.
"Disconnect it!"
Rourke ran toward the terminal.
Too late.
The decrypted Harbor Light archive had begun transmitting.
Not to Kessler.
To thousands of addresses.
Elena stared at the screen.
Someone had turned Kessler's own system against him.
Then a new message appeared.
HELLO, ELENA.
YOU STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO CLAIRE THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE.
May you like
Elena slowly turned toward her biological mother.
Claire's face told her the message was true.
