Chapter 3
“I want to know where that photograph came from,” I said.
Elise glanced at the phone in her hand. “We’re moving first.”
“Then we can move while you tell me.”
She gave me a level look, as if deciding whether stubbornness counted as a symptom. Jake was already watching the corridor. Ryan shifted his helmet under one arm and looked down at the blood darkening my jeans.
“Move,” he said. “Argue somewhere with a door that locks.”
The secured room was an equipment office with no windows and a table bolted to the floor. Elise shut the door behind us and tested the handle twice. The air smelled of old coffee and overheated electronics; a monitor on the wall showed a blank blue screen.
I lowered myself into a chair. My left leg objected sharply. I kept my face still and pointed at the phone.
“The photograph. What can you tell me?”
Elise set it on the table but kept one hand over it. “The message came through a disposable device with no caller ID. The image file has no useful location data.”
“Was it taken today?”
“I can’t prove that yet.”
“So someone sends me a picture of a woman and tells me to stay away from her, and we don’t know when or where it was taken.”
“We know someone wanted you to see it,” Jake said.
“Not the same thing as knowing why.”
Ryan leaned against the wall, but his attention stayed on the door. “The warning matters less than the channel it came through.”
“Then explain the signal.”
He looked at me. “The wing rock.”
“I saw it.”
“I wasn’t saying hello.” He rubbed a thumb along the edge of his helmet. “The escort channel gave me two orders. One said keep the aircraft on course. The other said break off and clear you from the plane. Both carried credentials that looked right. Neither could be authenticated.”
The room seemed to tighten around the small, steady hum of the monitor.
“You thought the channel was compromised,” I said.
“I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t tell which order was the trap.” Ryan’s expression hardened. “The wing rock was a warning. I wanted you watching the aircraft, not trusting the voice in your phone.”
Jake’s gaze cut to Elise. “And the order to hold him aboard?”
“Mine,” she said. “The altered movement order wasn’t.”
“Could the same people have sent both sets of instructions?” I asked.
“Yes,” Elise said. “Or someone could be using the confusion to make us blame the wrong people.”
No one in the room looked comforted.
A knock struck the door.
Jake straightened. Elise’s hand moved to the weapon at her waist.
A man outside called, “Security. Major Park, I need your confirmation on the transfer.”
Elise looked at Ryan. He shook his head once.
“Which security office?” she called.
“Ramp operations. We’ve got a change in the movement order.”
The man sounded practiced. Not hurried. That made it worse.
Elise tapped the phone’s screen, but it remained dark. “I didn’t authorize a transfer.”
A beat of silence.
Then the handle turned.
Jake moved to the side of the doorway. Ryan set his helmet on the table. I planted my good foot and tried to rise; my bad leg nearly folded under me.
“Stay down,” Jake said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through your jeans.”
The latch snapped.
The door burst inward. The man came through in a dark security jacket, one hand reaching past Elise—not for her, but for the phone on the table.
I caught his wrist.
Pain flashed up my left leg as I twisted from the chair. The man drove his shoulder into me, and the table shuddered against its bolts. Ryan grabbed the attacker’s other arm. Jake slammed the door shut behind him before anyone in the corridor could see inside.
“Let go!” the man barked.
He tried to wrench free. Ryan turned with him, taking the momentum, while I held on and drove the attacker’s wrist against the table’s metal edge. His fingers opened. A small black phone skittered across the floor.
Elise pinned his shoulder. Jake stripped a compact pistol from the man’s waistband and slid it out of reach.
Nobody fired. Nobody needed to.
The attacker groaned into the floor. I sat back hard in the chair, my breath coming short, my leg burning where the wound pulled open.
Ryan crouched beside the phone the man had dropped.
“Don’t touch it,” Elise said.
He nudged it with his boot. The screen had lit up. A call was coming in.
Jake searched the attacker’s jacket and pulled out an access badge. He read it once, then again.
“Meridian subcontractor,” he said.
The name meant nothing to me. The way Elise’s expression changed meant something.
“You know them?” I asked.
“I know the company name.” She took the badge from Jake without touching its face. “I don’t know why one of their subcontractors is wearing airport security colors.”
The phone kept ringing on the floor.
Then it stopped.
A message appeared.
RETURN THE DEVICE. RETURN OUR EMPLOYEE.
Jake looked at the attacker. “They’re watching.”
“Or he had an open line,” Ryan said.
The phone rang again.
Elise pulled on a pair of thin gloves. “Nobody answers until we know who’s calling.”
The attacker laughed once, breathless and mean. “You don’t know what you’re holding.”
I leaned forward. “Then tell me.”
His eyes moved to my face, then to the phone. He clamped his mouth shut.
Elise picked up the device and put it on speaker. “Identify yourself.”
A man’s voice answered at once, calm as a boardroom presentation.
“Miles Cross. I’m security chief for Meridian.”
Jake shifted his stance. Ryan’s eyes met mine. The company name had just walked into the room and given itself a voice.
Cross continued. “I want my employee and our property returned immediately.”
“What property?” I asked.
There was a brief pause. “The military phone.”
The attacker’s gaze flicked to my jacket.
So Cross knew which device he wanted. He knew who was in the room, or had enough information to make a good guess.
“Who gave you the authority to send him in here?” Elise asked.
“That’s not a question you can resolve over an unsecured line, Major.”
“You found the line.”
Another pause. The speaker hissed softly.
“Mr. Mercer,” Cross said, “you need to understand what happens when people get hurt because you refuse to cooperate.”
My grip tightened on the chair’s edge. Two men gone. One leg that would never carry me back to my old life. I knew how guilt worked when someone else held the handle.
May you like
Cross lowered his voice.
“The next person hurt will be your fault.”
