Chapter 22 - Fire in the Archive
Daniel covered his mouth with his sleeve.
Robert’s security team tried to override the locked doors.
The archive filled with white chemical suppressant.
Megan placed the serial plate inside a fireproof evidence pouch.
She examined the wall.
Voss expected them to use the main exit.
Instead, Megan remembered an emergency construction shaft from the building plans she reviewed years earlier.
She broke the glass covering a maintenance panel.
Behind it was a narrow ladder.
Robert looked at her.
“How do you know my building better than I do?”
“I spent years tracing your contractors.”
They climbed down one level.
Daniel’s injured leg slowed him.
Megan stayed behind him.
Nine years earlier, she had carried him through smoke.
Now he refused to let her.
“I can move,” he said.
“I know.”
They reached a mechanical room.
Security opened the outer door.
No one was seriously injured.
The archive fire destroyed several boxes but not the jacket or serial plate.
Camera footage showed a maintenance worker entering the system room using Charles Voss’s access code.
The worker was found unconscious in a parking garage.
He had been threatened.
Voss was escalating.
Robert looked at Megan.
“He will kill Samir.”
“Yes.”
“Then we go now.”
The airfield was ninety minutes away.
Megan contacted a trusted former colleague.
She requested surveillance, medical support, and local law enforcement officers selected through the judge’s office.
No private Parker teams.
No agencies connected to Voss.
Robert accepted the restriction.
Daniel did not.
“I’m coming.”
Megan looked at his leg.
May you like
Daniel replied, “You saved my life. Let me help save his.”
This time, Megan did not refuse.
