Chapter 2 - NO SAFE HOUSE
By sunrise, Gabriel's fever had begun.
Norah noticed because he stopped insulting her driving.
For the previous forty minutes, he had criticized every turn, every pothole, and one defensive maneuver involving a dead raccoon that Norah still believed had been entirely reasonable.
Then he went quiet.
His head rested against the cracked passenger window.
Sweat stood along his hairline despite the cold.
Norah touched the back of her fingers to his cheek.
His eyes opened immediately.
His gun moved halfway toward her before he recognized her.
"You are burning up."
"Don't touch me without warning."
"You were unconscious."
"I was resting my eyes."
"If you say that again, I am going to leave you at a veterinarian."
He almost answered.
Instead, a shiver went through him.
Norah's anger vanished.
"You need a doctor."
"I need one doctor."
"That sounds reassuring."
"It shouldn't."
Gabriel pointed toward a service road hidden between two warehouses.
"Turn there."
They entered an industrial district that seemed abandoned on purpose.
The buildings had no signs.
The loading bays were chained.
Security cameras watched empty sidewalks.
At the end of the road stood a trucking depot with three gray roll-up doors.
Norah stopped outside.
"Who owns this?"
"A dead man."
"You know a disturbing number of dead property owners."
"It's useful in my profession."
The center door opened before they reached it.
A man in mechanic's coveralls waved them inside.
Norah recognized him after a moment.
Victor Hale.
Gabriel's head of security was in his early fifties, broad shouldered, shaved close at the temples, with a face that looked carved for disappointment.
He had been at Gabriel's office the first night Norah discovered the missing money.
He had said almost nothing.
Now his silence felt different.
Victor shut the door behind the truck and strode to the passenger side.
His eyes moved to the blood immediately.
"Jesus."
"He's been shot," Norah said.
Victor gave her a look that suggested he had noticed.
"Who did it?"
Gabriel opened the door himself.
"Rory Finch was at the house."
Victor froze for less than a second.
Norah saw it anyway.
"Declan's Rory?"
"Unless he has a twin."
Victor reached for Gabriel's arm.
Gabriel stepped away.
"Where is Dr. Serrano?"
"On his way."
"Who knows I'm here?"
"Nobody."
Gabriel stared at him.
Victor did not look away.
"I used the old freight protocol," Victor said.
"No calls from an organization line."
"No drivers?"
"I came alone."
"Cameras?"
"Internal loop only."
Gabriel nodded once.
Then he staggered.
Victor caught him.
This time Gabriel did not resist.
The depot contained more than trucks.
Behind a false wall was a small apartment with two beds, a shower, a refrigerator, and medical supplies that made Norah wonder how frequently Gabriel's business required emergency surgery.
Dr. Serrano arrived fourteen minutes later through an underground service tunnel.
He was seventy if he was a day.
His gray hair stood straight up from the rain.
He took one look at Gabriel and cursed in Spanish.
"Table."
Gabriel sat on a stainless-steel worktable while Serrano cut away the improvised bandage.
Norah turned aside when he inserted forceps into the wound.
"Stay," Gabriel said.
She looked back.
"Why?"
"Because if I pass out, Victor is going to ask you questions."
Victor folded his arms.
"I can ask them while you're awake."
"You can."
Gabriel's eyes remained on Norah.
"But she answers to me."
Norah felt the weight in that sentence.
Not ownership.
Protection.
At least she hoped that was what he intended.
Serrano injected local anesthetic.
"Bullet missed the artery," he said.
"You are lucky."
"Luck is what incompetent people call preparation."
Serrano snorted.
"Preparation did not move the bullet three centimeters away from your subclavian artery."
"Then thank God for bad aim."
"God is not taking your calls."
Victor's phone vibrated.
He looked down.
Gabriel noticed.
"Who?"
"Elena."
Norah knew Elena Moretti was Gabriel's younger sister.
She ran the family's charitable foundation and remained publicly separated from everything that made the Moretti name dangerous.
"She knows?" Gabriel asked.
"She knows the safe house was attacked."
"How?"
Victor's face tightened.
"Because three bodies were found on the county road."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"Someone posted a photograph before we could contain it."
Gabriel's eyes went cold.
"Contain what?"
Victor hesitated.
"One of the bodies was Rory Finch."
Norah looked at Gabriel.
"You killed him?"
"No."
The room became very still.
Serrano paused with the forceps inside Gabriel's shoulder.
"Hold still," he warned.
Gabriel did not seem to hear him.
"Rory was alive when I left the house."
"Are you sure?" Victor asked.
"He spoke to someone after I put him down."
"Then someone finished him."
Norah remembered the gunshot in the forest after she and Gabriel reached the ranger station.
One distant crack.
At the time, she had assumed another attacker was searching.
Now she understood.
Someone had been cleaning the scene.
"Why kill their own man?" she asked.
Gabriel answered without looking at her.
"Because dead men don't explain who sent them."
Serrano finally extracted the bullet.
It landed in a metal tray with a sharp click.
Norah stared at it.
A small copper-colored shape.
Something so tiny had almost ended the most feared man she had ever met.
Serrano began stitching.
Victor moved toward the back room.
"I'll get you clothes."
"Wait," Norah said.
Victor turned.
She did not know why she had spoken.
Something about the extracted bullet bothered her.
Not the bullet itself.
The tray.
Beside it lay Gabriel's belongings from his pockets.
Wallet.
Spare magazine.
Two keys.
The handheld radio.
And a flat black disk no larger than a coin.
Norah pointed.
"What is that?"
Victor looked.
"Tracking tag."
Gabriel's eyes snapped toward it.
Serrano swore again.
Norah stepped closer.
"Where did it come from?"
"His jacket lining," Serrano said.
"I cut through it to reach the wound."
Victor picked up the disk with two fingers.
"That's not ours."
Gabriel stared at him.
"You sure?"
"Positive."
Victor turned it over.
A small serial number had been etched on the back.
Norah leaned in.
74-98113.
Her chest tightened.
"Seventy-four."
Gabriel looked at her.
"The prefix."
"Executive movement authorization," she said.
Victor's expression changed.
"That prefix is internal."
"I know."
"Where did you see it?"
"Steel invoices."
Victor looked from her to Gabriel.
"That makes no sense."
"It makes perfect sense if someone is using security credentials to authenticate financial transfers," Norah said.
"The real question is why the same prefix is on a tracker sewn into Gabriel's jacket."
Victor's jaw tightened.
"Who gave you the jacket?"
Gabriel's gaze remained on Victor.
"You did."
The sentence changed the temperature of the room.
Victor did not move.
Serrano's hand stopped above the stitch.
Norah felt suddenly aware of every exit.
Victor slowly placed the tracker on the table.
"I handed it to you."
"Yes."
"I did not prepare it."
"Who did?"
"The emergency kit was packed six weeks ago."
"By whom?"
Victor's answer came too slowly.
"My deputy."
"Name."
"Cal Mercer."
Gabriel's expression hardened.
"Where is he?"
Victor reached for his phone.
Gabriel's gun appeared in his left hand.
"Don't."
Victor froze.
"You think I planted it?"
"I think I was tracked to a safe house only you knew."
"Declan knew you had a house in that region."
"Not which one."
"Luca had access to the emergency file."
"Six months ago."
Victor looked at Norah.
"And now she is telling you my security prefix is tied to stolen money."
Norah did not like the way he said she.
"I am telling him what the records show."
"Records can be made to show anything."
"Only to people who don't know how to read them."
Victor's eyes narrowed.
Gabriel almost smiled again.
Then the depot lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Serrano cursed.
Norah heard Gabriel slide off the table.
"Down."
She dropped.
A second later, gunfire punched through the outer roll-up doors.
Metal screamed.
Bullets tore through the false wall.
Victor fired toward the loading bay.
Gabriel shoved Norah beneath the steel table.
"Stay with Serrano."
"You have stitches half finished."
"Then I'll bleed efficiently."
He disappeared into the dark.
The attack lasted less than ninety seconds.
It felt longer than the entire night before it.
Norah heard shots from two directions.
Then from three.
Victor shouted something she could not understand.
A truck engine roared outside.
The roll-up door buckled inward.
Serrano pulled Norah through the tunnel door.
"Move."
"Gabriel."
"He told you to move."
"I'm getting tired of men saying that."
She still moved.
The tunnel smelled of oil and wet concrete.
They had gone thirty yards when Gabriel appeared behind them.
His new bandage was already red.
Victor followed.
"They knew this place," Victor said.
"They knew the exact door."
Gabriel looked at the tracker in his hand.
"No."
He dropped it beneath his shoe and crushed it.
"They knew because someone told them after we arrived."
Victor's face went blank.
"Nobody knew."
Norah remembered his vibrating phone.
Elena.
She also remembered something else.
The depot's internal cameras.
"You said the cameras were on an internal loop."
Victor nodded.
"They are."
"Then an external attacker should not have known which bay we used."
"Correct."
"Unless the loop was compromised."
"Or unless someone inside the depot sent the feed."
They all looked at Dr. Serrano.
The old doctor raised both bloody hands.
"I was removing a bullet."
Norah turned toward Victor.
"Who controls the camera software?"
His expression shifted.
That was enough.
"Say it," Gabriel ordered.
Victor exhaled.
"Moretti Strategic Security."
"Who has administrator access?"
"Me."
"And?"
"My deputy."
Norah felt the pieces align.
"Cal Mercer."
Victor nodded.
Gabriel's voice was quiet.
"Find him."
Victor started to answer.
His phone rang.
All four of them stared at it.
The screen showed an unknown number.
Gabriel took the phone and answered without speaking.
A man's voice came through the speaker.
"Mr. Moretti."
Norah recognized the older voice from the radio.
"You continue to make this inconvenient."
Gabriel's face became unreadable.
"Who are you?"
A soft laugh.
"Ask your accountant what happens when an invoice is inflated exactly fourteen percent."
Norah's pulse jumped.
The voice continued.
"She thinks the money is being stolen."
Another pause.
"It isn't."
"Then what is it?" Gabriel asked.
"A payment."
Norah moved closer to the phone.
"For what?"
The voice answered her directly.
"For keeping old graves closed."
May you like
Then the line went dead.
THE FOURTEEN PERCENT LEDGER
