Chapter 10 - Blackout
Emergency lights flashed red.
Aaron pulled Elena behind a concrete pillar.
“Stay down.”
A gunshot echoed through the server level.
Then another.
Someone screamed.
Elena heard Margaret shout her name.
“Aaron.”
“I’m here.”
“Where’s Shaw?”
“I don’t know.”
The emergency system flickered.
A third shot.
Then silence.
Backup power returned thirty seconds later.
Peter Shaw was gone.
One security officer lay wounded near the doorway.
Another stared at the open service corridor.
“He had help.”
Aaron pressed his radio.
“Seal every stairwell.”
No response.
The radios had been jammed.
Elena moved toward the injured officer.
Blood stained his shoulder, but he was conscious.
“Who shot you?”
“Not Shaw.”
“Who?”
The officer pointed weakly.
“Security uniform.”
Aaron’s face hardened.
“Description?”
“Tall.”
“Gray hair.”
“Left hand.”
Margaret whispered.
“Robert.”
Elena turned.
“Who?”
“Robert Kane.”
“Former security director.”
“Former?”
“He retired six years ago.”
Aaron stared.
“My predecessor.”
Margaret nodded.
“And one of Evelyn’s closest friends.”
Elena looked toward the service corridor.
“Helix?”
Graham checked his tablet.
Robert Kane appeared.
ASSET CLASS A — STATUS UNKNOWN.
Elena felt betrayed by a dead woman all over again.
“How many people did my mother trust who were actually working against her?”
Margaret’s answer was quiet.
“Too many.”
The building remained sealed while police searched floor by floor.
Peter Shaw was found twenty minutes later.
Dead.
One shot to the chest.
No weapon.
No phone.
No access badge.
Robert Kane was nowhere inside the building.
“He came here for Shaw.”
Aaron said.
“No.”
Elena stared at Shaw’s body from behind the glass partition.
“He came here to stop him talking.”
Graham approached with a recovered item.
“We found this in Shaw’s jacket.”
A folded piece of paper.
Elena opened it.
Six words were written by hand.
THE STEWARD IS CLOSER THAN FAMILY.
Margaret read it.
Her face tightened.
“What does that mean?”
Elena looked at her.
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
Before Margaret could answer, Elena’s phone rang again.
Damian.
She answered immediately.
“Talk.”
His voice was shaking.
“They found me.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I changed aircraft.”
“I followed the beacon.”
“There was a car waiting.”
“And?”
“No driver.”
Elena exchanged a look with Aaron.
Damian breathed heavily.
“I opened Helix.”
“We know.”
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“My father’s name.”
Elena froze.
Damian had always claimed his father died when he was a teenager.
“What about him?”
“He wasn’t dead.”
Damian’s voice broke.
“He was Class A.”
A sound came from his side of the call.
A door opening.
Damian whispered.
“Oh God.”
“Damian?”
Someone spoke in the background.
A calm male voice.
“Give me the phone.”
Damian shouted.
The line went dead.
Elena stared at the screen.
Then a photograph arrived.
Damian sat tied to a chair.
Behind him stood a man whose face was outside the frame.
At the bottom of the photograph was one sentence.
BRING ME EVELYN’S ARCHIVE, OR HE DIES.
Graham looked at Elena.
“You’re not actually considering that.”
Elena stared at the image.
“No.”
Then another message arrived.
This one contained a photograph of Elena leaving school at age twelve.
Another at sixteen.
Another at college.
Another at her mother’s funeral.
Elena stopped breathing.
The final message read:
May you like
DAMIAN WAS NEVER THE REAL LEVERAGE.
YOU WERE ALWAYS BEING WATCHED.
