Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT
The woman looked exactly like Mara.
Same dark hair.
Same scar above the right eyebrow.
Same expression of controlled anger.
Only the red coat distinguished her from the real Mara.
Jonah moved between them.
The woman smiled.
“You always did choose loyal men.”
Mara recognized the voice before she recognized the person beneath the disguise.
“Cass Venn.”
Cass had been Mara’s executive assistant until she died in a laboratory fire three years earlier.
The woman pulled a thin synthetic layer from her face.
Burn scars crossed one side of Cass’s jaw, but she was alive.
“You watched my coffin go into the ground,” Cass said.
“I watched an empty coffin.”
“You never checked.”
Cass placed a small device against the wall. The security door locked behind her.
Jonah reached for his phone, but every screen in the corridor went black.
“Where are the passengers?” Mara asked.
“Never on the plane.”
“The cameras showed them boarding.”
“The cameras showed what Orpheus wanted you to see.”
Cass glanced at Theo and May.
“The system doesn’t simply steal identities. It creates histories, movements and evidence. Give it a face, and it can make the world believe that person was anywhere.”
Lena pulled the children closer.
“Ward promised you were finished.”
Cass’s smile faded.
Mara noticed the words.
“You know Celian Ward?”
Ward was chairman of Quinn Aeronautics—and the man who had helped Mara build the airport network.
Cass pressed a button.
A wall panel slid open, revealing a narrow maintenance tunnel.
“The passenger flight was a distraction,” she said. “The real aircraft leaves in nine minutes.”
“What aircraft?”
Cass handed Mara a photograph.
It showed a cargo plane beneath Hangar Twelve.
On its tail was the registration number of a plane destroyed seven years earlier.
Cass leaned closer.
May you like
“Your brother is inside it.”
Then the corridor filled with white smoke.
