Chapter 9 - the second camera
The tunnel began beneath the hidden archive.
Ethan sent two teams through secondary routes while Marcus and Khloe entered the main passage with a decoy drive. Margaret remained at the residence to oversee the evacuation of the guests.
Julian and Serena were placed under guard.
The tunnel was narrow but maintained. Fresh lights had been installed along the ceiling, proving someone had used it recently.
Khloe walked carefully, one hand holding Marcus’s.
“You can still turn back,” he said.
“So can you.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You and the baby matter more than any evidence.”
“That is why we need the evidence. They will keep coming as long as they believe our child threatens them.”
Marcus stopped.
“When we leave this tunnel, I want you taken somewhere no one in my family knows.”
“Your mother will know.”
“Then somewhere she doesn’t.”
“You finally sound like a Vale.”
“I don’t know whether that is an insult.”
“It is currently an observation.”
Ethan’s voice came through their earpieces.
“Movement ahead. The tunnel divides in thirty feet.”
They reached a metal junction.
One passage continued toward Aurelia Hospital. The other had been marked STORAGE.
The gold key became warm in Marcus’s hand.
A small brass lock was embedded beside the second passage.
He inserted the key.
The door opened.
Behind it was a surveillance room.
Dozens of old monitors lined the walls. Most were dark, but several displayed archived recordings from the Vale residence.
Marcus appeared in some of them as a teenager.
Margaret appeared in others.
Thomas had recorded his own house.
Khloe approached a monitor showing the corridor where Isabella had pushed her.
The angle was different.
“There was a second camera.”
Ethan entered the room behind them.
“The footage I found came from a backup camera inside the flagpole base. Owen didn’t know Thomas installed it.”
Khloe searched the files by date.
“Could there be another recording from the night Thomas died?”
Marcus entered the date.
Three files appeared.
The first showed Thomas leaving the residence.
The second showed Julian entering the archive.
The third showed Margaret meeting someone in the corridor after midnight.
Marcus opened the third.
On-screen, Margaret stood beneath the American flag. A man approached wearing a hooded coat.
She handed him a document case.
He gave her a small package.
When he turned, the camera captured his face.
It was the pilot from Owen’s broadcast.
Marcus stepped back.
“My mother met him after the crash.”
“The official crash report was released the next morning,” Ethan said. “She already knew he was alive.”
Khloe watched the footage continue.
Margaret opened the package.
Inside was the same gold key Marcus held now.
The pilot spoke directly toward the hidden camera.
Though the audio was weak, Ethan enhanced it.
“Thomas survived the impact. Someone reached the wreckage before the emergency teams. I heard him alive.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
“Who reached him?”
The pilot looked over his shoulder.
“Vale security.”
The video ended.
Ethan stood motionless.
His predecessor had led the security division that night.
Owen had worked beneath him.
“Margaret knew,” Marcus said.
“She knew part of it,” Khloe replied. “Not necessarily who gave the order.”
Marcus opened another file.
This one had been recorded inside the archive one week before the crash.
Thomas sat alone at the desk.
“If Marcus is watching this, Aurelia has already moved against his family.”
Thomas looked exhausted.
“The trust was created to remove Vale Global from the people who turned it into a private weapon. The shares will pass to Marcus’s child because a new generation may be the only one free from our agreements.”
He held up a photograph.
It was the original version of the image found in the envelope.
Thomas, Isabella’s father, Julian, and a fourth person stood outside Aurelia Hospital.
The fourth person was Owen Shaw.
“That cannot be the final answer,” Thomas continued. “Owen takes instructions. Julian follows money. Grant follows influence.”
Thomas lowered the photograph.
“The person above them has never signed a document and never entered a meeting under a real name.”
A sound came from the tunnel.
Ethan drew his weapon.
Someone had opened the junction door behind them.
Isabella entered with both hands raised.
“Do not shoot.”
Marcus stepped in front of Khloe.
“How did you get here?”
“I escaped Owen.”
“You left the hospital?”
“He wanted me to remain on camera while he prepared the lower vault. I used the ventilation passage.”
Ethan kept his weapon trained on her.
“Why should we believe you?”
“Because Owen is not planning to release the records.”
“What is he planning?”
“To destroy the hospital with everyone inside.”
Khloe looked toward the monitors.
“Where is the pilot?”
“Below the operating theater.”
“And Owen?”
Isabella’s voice trembled.
“Waiting for Marcus to bring him the key.”
Marcus held it up.
“Why does he need this?”
“It opens Thomas’s final vault.”
“What is inside?”
Isabella looked toward Khloe’s stomach.
“The document that names the true beneficiary.”
Khloe frowned.
“The trust names our child.”
“No,” Isabella said. “That is what Thomas wanted everyone to believe.”
The floor beneath them shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Ethan checked the tunnel map.
“Owen has activated the old demolition system.”
A timer appeared across every monitor.
09:59.
May you like
Isabella pointed toward the hospital passage.
“If we don’t reach the lower vault before that reaches zero, the truth dies with us.”
