Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WITH NO WINDOWS
Declan did not cry.
That was worse.
He sat in Dr. Serrano's clinic with both hands flat on his knees and stared at nothing.
Norah had seen grief expressed as screaming, bargaining, silence, and rage.
Declan's grief looked like calculation.
Every few seconds, his right thumb moved once against his palm.
Counting.
Targets perhaps.
Or breaths.
Gabriel stood across the room and said nothing.
No apology would survive what had happened.
No explanation would make Declan's mother less dead.
Victor finally broke the silence.
"We need to move Margaret."
Norah looked at him.
"Where?"
"Somewhere outside the city."
"Every safe house has been compromised."
"Not one of mine."
Gabriel's head turned.
"You have private locations?"
Victor's face did not change.
"You told me to plan for the possibility that the organization itself was compromised."
"When?"
"Eight years ago."
Gabriel remembered.
Norah saw it.
"Why didn't you use one before?"
"Because the moment I use it, it stops being private."
"That sounds like now."
Victor nodded.
The house sat forty miles west of the city in the middle of an abandoned apple orchard.
It had no visible windows from the road.
Its concrete exterior resembled a storage bunker more than a home.
Inside, however, there were bedrooms, medical supplies, generators, and a communications room protected by a Faraday cage.
Margaret looked around once and said what Norah was thinking.
"Your friends are strange."
Gabriel almost smiled.
"That is generous."
Serrano stayed with Margaret.
Declan disappeared into a bedroom and shut the door.
Victor began testing every system personally.
Gabriel and Norah took the black case into the communications room.
For the first time in two days, they were alone without bullets passing nearby.
Norah found the quiet uncomfortable.
Gabriel removed his coat.
Blood had soaked through his shirt again.
"Sit."
"I'm fine."
"You are staining Victor's bunker."
"He'll survive."
"You might not."
Gabriel sat.
Norah opened the medical kit.
"Serrano said no shooting."
"Serrano says many unrealistic things."
She removed the bandage carefully.
Two stitches had torn.
"You need him to close this again."
"Later."
"Gabriel."
"Norah."
She looked up.
He was closer than she expected.
His face had lost the hard public distance he wore around everyone else.
Fatigue made him look younger.
Human.
That was dangerous in a different way.
Norah cleaned the wound.
He did not flinch.
"I'm sorry about Declan's mother," she said.
"So am I."
"He may blame you."
"He should."
Norah stopped.
"Why?"
"Because I brought him into this."
"He was already in it."
"He didn't know how deep."
"Neither did you."
Gabriel looked at her.
"That doesn't absolve me."
Norah understood then why men followed him despite fear.
He was ruthless.
Controlling.
Often infuriating.
But he carried responsibility as if refusing it would be a greater weakness than failure.
She taped fresh gauze in place.
"There."
Gabriel did not move.
His hand closed lightly around her wrist.
Norah's breath caught.
"Thank you."
Two simple words.
They felt more intimate than the arm around her waist at the safe house.
She pulled her wrist back before the moment became something neither of them could afford.
"We need to decode the ledger."
Gabriel released her.
"Yes."
Norah connected the encryption device again.
CHECK THE MARGIN.
The margin marks had given them SAINT LIVES, a date, and coordinates.
There were hundreds more frames.
She began transcribing every symbol.
Gabriel worked beside her.
He was surprisingly good at repetitive tasks.
"You have neat handwriting," Norah said.
"You sound disappointed."
"I expected threatening capital letters."
"Only for formal occasions."
For two hours, they converted marks into characters.
The message emerged slowly.
SAINT LIVES.
DRake is not dead.
TRUST NO COUNSEL.
MONEY BUYS WITNESSES.
FOURTEEN IS THE TOLL.
Norah stopped at the next line.
S.V. WILL KNOW.
Gabriel looked at it.
"S.V.?"
"Could be initials."
"Your father?"
"No one I know."
They continued.
The next line contained a bank identifier.
The account had been closed ten years ago.
Norah recognized the institution.
Federal Municipal Credit Union.
A bank used by city employees and law enforcement.
"Witness payments," she said.
"Or bribes."
Gabriel nodded.
The ledger was not tracking money stolen from the Morettis.
It was tracking money paid to police officers, inspectors, judges, dock workers, and city contractors.
Fourteen percent of selected legitimate invoices was siphoned into a network that bought silence.
Someone had been paying hundreds of people for more than a decade.
Norah searched the names.
Many were coded.
Some appeared beside dates.
Some beside case numbers.
One code appeared more than any other.
COUNSEL-01.
The payouts connected to it were enormous.
"If Counsel is Arturo," Norah said, "then he controlled the network."
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
"Maybe."
"You don't want it to be him."
"Want has nothing to do with it."
"It always does."
He looked at her.
Norah did not look away.
"Declan was easy to suspect because you recently promoted him."
"Yes."
"Victor was easy because he controlled security."
"Yes."
"Luca was easy because he was at Pier Nine."
"Your point?"
"Arturo will be harder because you love him."
Gabriel's face hardened.
"I don't need psychological accounting."
"Everyone needs accounting."
He almost smiled despite himself.
Then the screen changed.
A new window opened automatically.
Norah froze.
"I didn't click anything."
Gabriel stood.
Text appeared on the black screen.
HELLO, NORA.
Norah's blood went cold.
The computer was supposed to be air-gapped.
No wireless connection.
No cable.
No network.
Yet someone was speaking through the encryption device itself.
A second line appeared.
YOUR FATHER TOOK ELEVEN YEARS TO OPEN THIS DOOR.
A third.
YOU TOOK TWO DAYS.
Gabriel unplugged the device.
The screen remained active.
"How?"
Norah turned the laptop over.
Nothing.
Victor entered at the sound of Gabriel calling his name.
He looked at the screen.
"That's impossible."
Text continued.
ASK VICTOR WHAT HAPPENED AT HANGAR FOUR.
Victor's face changed.
Gabriel noticed immediately.
"What happened at Hangar Four?"
Victor backed toward the door.
"Nothing that matters now."
Gabriel's voice became dangerous.
"That is the wrong answer."
Victor looked at Norah.
"The coordinates from the ledger."
"Arturo's old airfield," she said.
"Hangar Four was where your father met Jonah Drake the night Thomas Vale died."
Gabriel went still.
"You were there."
Victor nodded once.
"Outside."
"Who else?"
Victor swallowed.
"Luca."
"And?"
"Arturo."
The screen typed another line.
HE IS STILL LYING.
Victor stared at it.
Norah's skin prickled.
"Who is still lying?"
The answer appeared one letter at a time.
V I C T O R.
Gabriel raised his gun.
Victor's hands went up.
"Gabriel."
"Tell me the rest."
"I can't."
"You can."
"Not with Margaret in this house."
Norah stood.
"What does my mother have to do with it?"
Victor looked at her with open regret.
"Everything."
Before Norah could ask another question, the lights died.
A heavy mechanical lock slammed somewhere in the hall.
Victor turned toward the door.
Too late.
Gas hissed through the ventilation vents.
Gabriel grabbed Norah and pulled his shirt over her mouth.
Victor fired at the vent grille.
The room tilted.
Norah heard Margaret scream from somewhere outside.
Then another sound.
Declan shouting.
"They found us!"
Gabriel tried to reach the door.
His legs failed first.
Norah fell with him.
The last thing she saw before darkness took her was Victor Hale still standing.
May you like
He was wearing a respirator.
THE FOURTEEN PERCENT LEDGER
