Chapter 8 - The Voice on the Recording
Her name was Rebecca Beckett.
Alive.
Lana stared at the photograph until it blurred.
Thomas had lied.
Ingrid had lied.
Everyone had lied.
Victor took the phone.
“You're not going alone.”
“They have my mother.”
“They want you emotional.”
“I am emotional.”
“That's why I'm saying it.”
Lana faced him.
“If that were your mother?”
Victor looked toward Evelyn.
He did not answer.
He didn't need to.
They went together.
Pier Twelve appeared deserted.
Thomas waited inside a shipping office.
The ledger sat on the desk.
Lana stormed toward him.
“Where is she?”
“Marcus moved her.”
“You gave him the ledger?”
“No.”
Thomas opened it.
The pages were blank.
“A decoy.”
Victor almost smiled.
Thomas had sent Marcus false coordinates embedded in the ledger.
They now knew Rebecca’s location.
Warehouse Seventeen.
Again.
But before they left, Thomas played an audio recording Marcus had accidentally transmitted while checking the decoy.
Marcus’s voice filled the room.
“Midnight. Marlow comes through the east entrance. Reinhardt's remaining men hit from the river. Mercer takes the west.”
Leo stiffened.
“There. He still thinks I'm working for him.”
Victor looked at him.
“You can use that.”
Leo nodded.
A plan formed.
For the first time, they would walk knowingly into Marcus’s trap.
At Warehouse Seventeen, Lana entered with Victor.
Marcus waited beside Rebecca.
Klaus stood near him, wounded but alive.
“You.”
Victor stared.
Klaus shrugged.
“I recover quickly.”
Marcus applauded.
“Beautiful. Everyone together.”
Lana looked at Rebecca.
Her mother was crying.
“I'm sorry.”
Lana refused to let herself react.
Not yet.
Marcus demanded the real ledger.
Victor held it up.
“Release her.”
Marcus smiled.
“You still negotiate as if we're equals.”
“No.”
Victor's voice became quiet.
“I negotiate as if you haven't noticed the men behind you.”
Marcus turned.
Leo stepped from the shadows.
His gun was aimed at Klaus.
Marcus smiled.
“Excellent.”
Then Leo turned the weapon toward Victor.
Lana's stomach dropped.
Marcus laughed.
“Some betrayals never end.”
Victor looked at Leo.
No anger.
Only disappointment.
“Twenty-two years.”
Leo’s face was unreadable.
Then he fired.
Klaus fell.
Leo immediately swung toward Marcus.
“Get down!”
Gunfire erupted.
Victor pulled Lana behind a steel column.
Thomas rushed toward Rebecca.
Sarah and Gavin remained with Victor’s backup team outside.
Marcus escaped through the lower tunnels.
Rebecca was alive.
Klaus was not.
Leo had played the deception perfectly.
Victor clasped his shoulder.
“Never do that again.”
Leo smiled.
“You believed it.”
“For half a second.”
“That’s enough.”
Lana cut Rebecca’s restraints.
Her mother reached toward her.
Lana stepped back.
“Not yet.”
Rebecca lowered her hand.
“I understand.”
“No. You don't.”
“You're right.”
It hurt more when people admitted that.
A computer beeped.
Marcus had left a file open.
A countdown.
00:09:41.
Leo stared.
“Bomb?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Transmission.”
“To where?”
Lana opened the file.
A manifest appeared.
A ship was leaving the harbor at midnight.
Its cargo declaration said machinery.
The hidden manifest said something else.
People.
Forty-three names.
Children included.
Victor’s face changed.
Marcus was not merely escaping.
He was completing one last shipment.
They had nine minutes.
Then the speakers crackled.
Marcus’s voice filled the warehouse.
“You wanted to save everyone, Victor?”
A steel door began descending between them and the tunnel.
“Choose.”
On one security feed, the ship moved toward open water.
May you like
On another, Evelyn Marlow appeared bound inside a room filling slowly with water.
And Marcus whispered, “Your mother or forty-three strangers.”
