Chapter 11 - The Price of Silence
The first shot struck the metal door. The second tore through the wall above Maria’s shoulder. Samira dragged Farid behind a trunk while Adam pushed Maria toward the rear of the unit.
“The roof,” he said.
“There are shooters on the roof,” Samira replied.
“Then the floor.”
Maria saw the drafting table, the hidden compartment, and the old drainage grate beneath it. She pulled the table aside with Adam’s help. A rusted ladder descended into darkness.
“My father really did hide everything underground,” she said.
“He distrusted doors,” Adam replied.
They climbed as bullets struck the floor above. Samira forced Farid down ahead of her. The passage beneath the storage units smelled of oil and wet earth. It opened into a storm channel where water rushed around their ankles.
“We cannot keep running,” Maria said.
“We are not running,” Adam answered. “We are surviving until we understand the pattern.”
“That is a very royal way to say running.”
Despite the danger, he almost smiled.
They reached a concrete chamber containing a portable radio, blankets, and a metal cabinet. Someone had prepared the place recently. Inside the cabinet were medical supplies and a sealed envelope addressed to Maria.
She opened it with shaking fingers.
Maria, if Victor gives you the brass key, do not assume he has chosen courage. He may simply have run out of places to hide. Ask him about the night your mother disappeared.
The letter was unsigned, but the handwriting was Daniel’s.
“My mother disappeared?” Maria asked.
Victor had always told her Elena died in a car accident two years after Daniel. Maria remembered the funeral, the closed casket, and Victor refusing to discuss the details.
“You did not know?” Adam asked.
“I knew she died. I did not know she disappeared first.”
Samira studied the envelope. “There may be another message.”
Maria held it near the radio’s heat vent. Invisible ink darkened across the paper.
Elena was taken to the safe house in Noor. She saw the person who opened the gate.
Adam went still. “Elena may have survived the car accident.”
“Or she survived long enough to identify someone.”
Farid coughed. Samira raised her weapon toward him.
“Do not,” Adam said.
“He is compromised.”
“He has information.”
Farid leaned against the wall. “Rashad kept an archive beneath the old Ministry of Water. I saw the files once. Elena Ruiz was listed as a protected witness, then transferred to a clinic outside Qamar.”
“When?” Maria asked.
“Twelve years ago.”
The date matched Daniel’s death.
“Is she alive?”
“I do not know.”
“Who ordered the transfer?”
Farid’s eyes lowered. “Kareem Khalid.”
Adam’s face hardened. “You said Rashad controlled the files.”
“He did. But Kareem signed the transfer order.”
Maria felt hope and anger rise together. Her mother might be alive, and the man suspected of betraying Daniel might have hidden her.
Above them, footsteps crossed the storage-unit floor.
Samira switched off the radio. “We need a way out.”
Farid pointed toward the far wall. “The channel runs beneath the rail station. From there, you can reach the airport.”
“We are not going to the airport,” Maria said.
Adam looked at her. “Where then?”
She closed her hand around both brass keys.
“Noor. If my mother was taken there, that is where the truth began.”
The radio crackled to life by itself.
May you like
A woman’s voice spoke through the static.
“Maria, this is Elena Ruiz. If Adam Khalid is with you, do not let him bring you home.”
