Chapter 6 - THE MOLEThe countdown began at 4:17.
Five minutes was long enough to think.
Not long enough to hesitate.
Voss ordered the tactical teams to hold position while explosives specialists analyzed the signal. The first scan detected charges along the warehouse support beams and fuel lines.
The obvious response was evacuation.
The obvious response would leave Nora chained inside.
I opened the vehicle door.
Voss grabbed my arm.
“No.”
“I am not leaving her.”
“You enter that building, you may trigger a secondary device.”
“I know.”
“You are emotionally compromised.”
“My daughter is counting backward beneath a bomb.”
Julian leaned across the seat.
“The underwater tunnel enters below the loading platform. The charges may not cover it.”
“May not?” Voss said.
“Victor never wired that section because he used the tunnel as an escape route.”
I looked at the timer.
Four minutes, thirty-one seconds.
“Show me.”
Voss cursed, then ordered two tactical agents to accompany us.
The tunnel entrance was hidden beneath a rusted maintenance platform seventy yards from the warehouse. Freezing river water covered the first section to our knees.
Julian moved slowly in handcuffs.
I shoved him forward.
“If we are late because of you, you won’t need Victor to worry about.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You had eleven weeks to help.”
We reached a steel ladder leading into darkness.
Above us, Nora’s melody continued through the loudspeakers.
Four notes.
Pause.
Four notes.
The same sequence my mother used in the recording.
The melody was not merely a countdown.
It was a message.
Nora was telling me where to look.
“The child’s song,” I whispered.
Julian glanced back.
“What?”
“Why did you teach her that melody?”
“I found it written inside an old foundation notebook.”
“Whose notebook?”
“Your mother’s.”
“Where?”
“In the archive room.”
I understood.
The explosives were real, but the keyboard had another purpose. Victor wanted the path encoded inside the music. He was using Nora because she knew how to play it.
“What happens when the song ends?” I asked.
Julian’s face tightened.
“I don’t know.”
We climbed into a narrow service corridor beneath the warehouse.
The countdown showed three minutes through the metal grating overhead.
A guard stood near the end of the corridor.
One tactical agent moved behind him and pulled him silently into the shadows.
We continued.
At the loading platform, I saw Nora through gaps in the floor.
She sat beneath a white light, wearing her hospital clothes and one shoe. A microphone had been taped near the keyboard.
Victor Shaw stood twenty feet away.
Beside him was Cole Arden.
My supervisor.
The man who had shaken my hand before the operation and told me he trusted my instincts.
Cole held a phone displaying the countdown.
“You skipped the final phrase,” Victor said to Nora.
Nora’s hands remained on the keys.
“I forgot.”
“You have played it fourteen times.”
“I’m tired.”
Victor approached her.
I moved toward the platform opening.
Voss’s agent stopped me and pointed to a pressure sensor beneath Victor’s feet.
If I entered from the wrong angle, the charges could detonate.
Cole crouched in front of Nora.
“Your mother is outside.”
Nora looked toward the doors.
“She won’t come.”
“She always comes,” Cole said.
The words sounded almost respectful.
“That is her weakness.”
Nora looked at him.
“No. That’s why she wins.”
Even from below, I saw Cole’s expression change.
The countdown reached two minutes.
Victor turned toward the loading doors.
“Julian has disappointed me.”
Cole checked the security feeds.
“He entered through the tunnel.”
Victor smiled.
“So did Mara.”
The lights beneath the platform snapped on.
We were exposed.
Armed men appeared on both sides of the corridor.
“Come up,” Cole called. “Slowly.”
The tactical agents raised their weapons.
A red laser appeared against Nora’s chest.
I lowered mine.
“Do it,” I told the agents.
We climbed onto the platform.
Julian came last.
Victor looked at him with disgust.
“You hid the cylinder.”
“I was protecting our agreement.”
“Our agreement ended when your wife returned.”
Julian looked toward Nora.
“Release her.”
Victor laughed.
“You discovered your conscience at an inconvenient time.”
Cole approached me.
He looked exactly as he had during our last briefing—navy coat, clean-shaven face, calm eyes.
“Your team should have died in Alaska,” he said.
“Two agents disappeared.”
“They were transferred.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere useful.”
The countdown reached one minute, thirty seconds.
Voss’s voice sounded faintly through my earpiece.
We had lost direct transmission in the tunnel, but the emergency channel remained open.
“Keep him talking,” he whispered.
I looked at Cole.
“Why did you send me to Alaska?”
“To recover the cylinder.”
“You knew my mother gave it to Nora?”
“I knew it was connected to the family trust. Julian found the music box but failed to understand what it contained.”
Victor looked at Julian.
“He failed repeatedly.”
“What is Meridian?” I asked.
Cole smiled.
“A system.”
“Criminal system.”
“A practical system. Governments change. Borders change. Wars create needs. Meridian supplies those needs.”
“With stolen weapons.”
“With whatever the market requires.”
The timer showed fifty-eight seconds.
“What happens at zero?”
Victor answered.
“The warehouse burns. The evidence disappears. The world believes Mara Mercer died attempting to rescue the daughter she abandoned.”
“And you escape through the tunnel.”
“That was the plan.”
“Was?”
Victor looked at Cole.
For the first time, uncertainty passed between them.
Cole’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
“No boats at the eastern dock,” he said.
Voss’s river team had intercepted them.
Victor raised his weapon toward Cole.
“You said the route was clear.”
“It was.”
“You brought federal agents into my port.”
Cole’s calm expression remained.
“You kidnapped the daughter of a federal operative.”
“You approved it.”
“I approved leverage. Not theater.”
They were turning on each other.
The countdown reached thirty seconds.
Nora looked at me.
Her fingers moved toward the final piano key.
“Don’t play it,” I said.
Victor aimed at her.
“Finish the melody.”
Nora’s hand froze.
Twenty-five seconds.
Julian stepped between Victor and the chair.
“Don’t.”
Victor stared at him.
“Move.”
“No.”
The word surprised everyone.
Julian looked at Nora.
“I should have protected you.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You didn’t.”
“I know.”
Fifteen seconds.
Victor fired.
Julian fell.
At the same moment, tactical charges blew open the loading doors.
Voss’s teams entered from both sides.
Gunfire cracked across the warehouse.
I ran toward Nora.
Cole grabbed the cylinder through my coat and pulled me backward.
We struck the floor.
The countdown reached ten.
I drove my elbow into his throat.
He held on.
Eight.
Nora tried to pull free from the chair.
Six.
Victor ran toward the tunnel.
Four.
I reached the chain around Nora’s ankle.
There was no time to unlock it.
Two.
Nora struck the final piano key.
The countdown stopped at one.
Silence filled the warehouse.
Victor froze near the tunnel entrance.
Cole stared at the timer.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
Nora pointed beneath the keyboard.
A small wire hung loose.
“I pulled the red one.”
She had disabled the trigger before we arrived.
The countdown had been a bluff.
Voss tackled Cole.
Federal agents seized Victor near the tunnel.
I wrapped my arms around Nora.
Across the warehouse, Julian lay on the floor with blood spreading beneath him.
He was still alive.
He looked toward us.
Not at me.
At Nora.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Nora stared at him.
Before she could answer, an explosion tore through the eastern wall.
The force threw us behind the loading platform.
Smoke filled the building.
Victor laughed from the floor.
“That was not the main device.”
A section of the warehouse roof collapsed.
Through the smoke, I saw Cole Arden rise behind Voss.
His handcuffs were gone.
A federal agent stood beside him, holding the key.
Someone else inside the team was working for Meridian.
May you like
Cole took the agent’s weapon.
Then both men disappeared into the fire.
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