Chapter 11 - Catherine’s Price
The recording showed Catherine entering the room beside Daniel.
She looked much younger.
Daniel accused her of playing both sides.
Catherine admitted the Vance-Sterling network was too powerful to destroy through normal prosecution.
She wanted control of the evidence so she could blackmail its members into dismantling one another.
Daniel refused.
He hid the files in two pieces.
One inside the vault.
One with Adrian.
Sarah turned toward him.
“You had the second half.”
Adrian shook his head.
“I had the access code. Maya found the device.”
The recording continued.
Daniel said one member of Sarah’s Blackout team had betrayed the safe house.
The name was encrypted.
To reveal it, both storage devices had to be connected.
Sarah inserted Maya’s device beside Daniel’s.
The projector flickered.
A list of financial records appeared.
Operations.
Payments.
Photographs.
Then one name.
Dr. Catherine Vale.
Sarah stared at it.
Catherine had provided the safe-house location.
The two agents who died had trusted her.
Daniel discovered the betrayal afterward.
Catherine helped stage his death only because he possessed evidence against her.
She kept him hidden long enough to learn where he placed the files.
Then Daniel vanished again.
The final recording did not reveal whether he escaped or was killed.
Arthur Sterling laughed from the corridor.
“You spent fifteen years letting the woman who murdered your team eat at your table.”
Sarah turned.
Jonathan looked sick.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Arthur continued.
“Catherine did not come to tonight’s gala to save Maya. She came to erase the last file.”
A red warning light activated inside the vault.
The temperature began rising.
A destruction protocol.
Catherine had triggered it remotely.
Sarah removed both devices.
The vault door began closing.
She ran.
Adrian pulled Arthur through the gap.
Jonathan held the door long enough for Sarah to escape.
The steel slab sealed behind them.
Smoke filled the vault.
But Sarah now held the complete Blackout file.
And Catherine knew it.
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