Chapter 14 - The Two Halves
The attackers cut through the roof while the train crawled into the station. Samira fired upward, forcing them back. Leon kicked open the side door, and cold air rushed through the car.
“Jump when I say,” he told Maria.
“You are not in charge.”
“I am if you want to land alive.”
Adam grabbed a hanging rail. “Maria, stay behind me.”
“That is not your rule.”
“It is my instinct.”
The train lurched. Leon shouted, “Now!”
Maria jumped first, rolling across the gravel. Adam landed beside her and pulled her behind a concrete barrier. Samira and Leon followed as the freight train thundered onward, carrying the attackers away from them.
They crossed the station through an abandoned ticket office and emerged on a road where a woman waited beside an old sedan. She wore a red scarf.
Maria recognized her from the storage unit.
Samira raised her weapon.
“Do not shoot,” the woman said. “I am Nora Bell.”
“Grant’s sister,” Maria said.
“Yes.”
“You were in the unit.”
“I was trying to reach you before Grant did.”
Nora’s eyes moved to Leon. “You told them?”
“They had the right to know.”
“You always did confuse honesty with survival.”
“And you always confused survival with redemption.”
Nora looked at Maria. “I was at Blue Gate the night your father died. I saw Grant order the valves opened. I saw Nadia Vale hand him the access card.”
Adam took a step forward. “Why did you never testify?”
“Because Grant held my daughter in a private school under a false name. When I tried to go to the police, he sent me a photograph of her asleep.”
Maria’s anger faltered. “Where is she now?”
“Safe. In Canada. She does not know why we keep moving.”
Nora opened the sedan’s trunk. Inside lay a waterproof case containing old blueprints and a video cassette.
“I copied this before Grant destroyed the original archive. It proves the valve sequence was deliberate.”
“Why bring it to us now?”
“Because Grant has decided to kill the last witnesses before the treaty ceremony.”
Adam examined the case. “Why would he let you live?”
“He believed fear had made me loyal.”
Maria took out the two keys. Their teeth aligned perfectly when placed side by side, but a narrow groove ran through both bows. She remembered the brass plate in the storage unit.
“The witness seal,” she said.
Nora nodded. “Daniel and Hassan designed it to open a record vault beneath the original Blue Gate station. The vault is not in Noor. It is under the old Chicago pumping system.”
“We were just there,” Maria said.
“You opened the prototype chamber. The real vault requires the two keys joined into one.”
Leon removed a thin metal sleeve from his coat. “This locks them together.”
Maria took it from him. The sleeve fit around the bows, creating a single brass shape like a small compass.
Adam looked at the keys. “If the vault contains the original ledger, we can prove the sabotage and the financial network.”
“And identify the person who ordered the killing,” Nora said.
“Rashad?” Maria asked.
Nora hesitated. “Rashad ordered the political cover-up. But the collapse was authorized by someone else.”
Adam’s face lost its color. “Who?”
Nora looked past him toward the dark road.
“Your father.”
The accusation seemed impossible, yet every secret had led back to Hassan Khalid.
May you like
Nora started the car.
“Get in,” she said. “If you want the truth, you must be prepared to hate the man who began it.”
