Chapter 7 - The Dead Man's Key
Their father, Thomas Brennan, had commanded logistics at Meridian. After his death, Claire buried herself in deployments while Daniel drowned grief in alcohol. Neither had examined the sealed boxes in his attic.
Inside one box they found tide charts, shipping invoices, and a photograph of Thomas beside a younger Simon Rourke and Elias Voss. On the photograph's reverse, Thomas had written: If anything happens, follow the bell.
A brass harbor bell stood outside the old command archive.
At midnight Brennan and Price entered through a drainage culvert. Daniel monitored police frequencies from the safe house. Brennan's damaged knee protested every ladder, but pain was information, not instruction.
The brass key opened a compartment inside the bell's mounting post. It contained a microfilm cylinder wrapped in oilcloth.
Footsteps crossed the courtyard.
Captain Voss stepped from the fog with a pistol lowered at his side.
"You look remarkably healthy for a woman in custody," he said.
Price aimed at him. Brennan did not.
"You put the ledger in your office," Brennan said.
"I took it before Rourke could."
Voss confessed that he had protected Garrett's thefts under threat. Rourke possessed evidence that Voss's son had killed a civilian in a drunken crash. The evidence had been suppressed; exposure would send the young man to prison and destroy several careers.
"You traded national security for your son," Price said.
"At first, I traded one shipment. Then there was always another."
Shame had hollowed Voss out. He gave Brennan the original ledger and a drive containing audio of Rourke's orders. But Rourke never used his own name. The evidence still lacked the final connection.
The microfilm supplied it. Thomas Brennan had documented a smuggling network operating under the same maritime codes fifteen years earlier. The final frame showed a payment to an account labeled HARBORMASTER S.R.
Before they could leave, a red dot appeared on Voss's chest.
Brennan tackled him as a rifle round shattered the bell. Price returned fire toward a rooftop. More shots struck the courtyard.
They escaped into the archive, where Voss revealed a tunnel leading to the seawall. Halfway through, he stopped.
"Rourke's final shipment leaves at 0400 aboard the relief ship Resolute," he said. "Once it reaches international water, the processors disappear."
"Then help us stop it."
Voss shook his head. "He has my son at Pier Nine."
Daniel's voice broke over Brennan's radio.
"Claire, someone found the safe house."
May you like
A gunshot sounded through the connection.
Then silence.
