Chapter 12 - Sarah’s Choice
Jack stopped.
Duke moved between them.
Sarah’s hands shook around the pistol.
Her eyes were wet.
“Don’t come closer.”
Jack looked at the weapon, then at her face.
“You’re not restrained.”
“The room in the glass was recorded three minutes ago.”
“Why are you holding a gun?”
“Because Elias said you would bring Vale.”
Rebecca stepped into view.
Sarah’s aim shifted toward her.
“You.”
Vale did not raise her own weapon.
“Sarah.”
“You left me with him.”
“I kept you alive.”
“You kept me useful.”
Jack moved slightly.
Sarah swung the pistol back toward him.
“I said stay there.”
He froze.
Duke remained between them, body tense but silent.
Emily came closer to the hidden doorway.
“Sarah, the monitor shows someone else beneath us.”
Sarah’s expression cracked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Elias.”
Vale stared at her.
“What?”
“He’s not speaking from a control room. He’s below the floor.”
Jack glanced toward the open hatch.
The trap had not been choosing between Sarah and a prisoner.
The prisoner was Elias himself.
“Why is he restrained?” Jack asked.
“Because Northstar is no longer under his control.”
A mechanical lock engaged somewhere in the walls.
Sarah lowered the gun slightly.
“Six months ago, Elias tried to sell the complete Ledger to a foreign broker. His own board stopped him. They needed Duke to recover the missing authentication sequence.”
Jack looked at Duke’s scar.
“The route markers.”
“Duke’s pattern is part of the key. Your memory is the other half.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You do,” Sarah said. “You buried it.”
A painful pressure formed behind Jack’s eyes.
Flashes surfaced.
A steel chamber beneath Red Valley.
Samuel Harper bleeding beside a terminal.
Elias shouting that the Ledger could not leave.
Sarah’s voice over the radio telling Jack to trust Duke.
Jack placing something inside the dog’s harness.
Then an explosion.
He touched the scarred edge of Duke’s tag.
“What did I hide?”
Sarah’s face tightened.
“The final access cipher.”
Vale looked at her.
“You knew all these years?”
“I knew Jack gave Duke something. I didn’t know what.”
Jack’s anger rose.
“You disappeared because of that?”
“I disappeared because Elias found me first.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“I tried.”
“Nine years, Sarah.”
Her lips trembled.
“Every message I sent put someone near you at risk. Elias had watchers around your apartment, your work, Duke’s veterinarian. The one time I got close enough to enter your home, Duke recognized me.”
The photograph.
Jack asleep.
Duke awake.
Sarah had been the intruder.
“You took that picture.”
“I needed proof for Vale that you were alive and uncompromised.”
Jack looked toward Rebecca.
“You knew Sarah entered my home?”
Vale nodded.
The betrayal cut in multiple directions.
Not one lie.
A structure built from them.
Emily moved toward the hatch.
“If Elias is injured, he may die.”
Sarah caught her arm.
“He wants you down there.”
“My father’s Ledger may be with him.”
“Your father’s Ledger is the reason he is still alive.”
A heavy impact sounded beneath the floor.
Then another.
The pulse monitor accelerated.
Duke turned toward the hatch and growled for the first time.
Jack looked at Sarah.
“What’s below us besides Elias?”
She swallowed.
“The man from the bus.”
The hooded man climbed slowly into view.
His hands were no longer cuffed.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
He looked at Jack.
“My name is Michael Voss.”
May you like
Elias’s son.
Behind him, someone in the tunnel chamber released the safety on a rifle.
